Father-in-Law Issues
by seriousblahblah
Summary: Hermione is married to Draco. So why is she dreaming of his dad? It's all wrong and morally repugnant except she can't stop her mind, or hands, from wandering to the older wizard. Neither can he. "What shall we say then?" he whispers to her. "Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" Dark Lumione.
1. Chapter 1

Lucius Malfoy/Hermione Granger. Post-war. Mature themes.

~o~

 **Father in Law Issues**

~o~

She knows it isn't right.

Draco is her husband. Lucius is just a man who happens to be his father. They're family by law and name only. Grudgingly, too, they barely get along.

They're barely relations, they have nothing in common—with the exception of Draco. They both love Draco.

Hermione and Lucius both put up with each other for the young blonde's sake. Draco wants them all to be a happy family together. Draco insists on having the man he loves best and the woman he loves best both by his side.

Hermione pretends. Lucius pretends even more, but that doesn't stop the grimace on the older man's face whenever Hermione walks into a room. Hermione still knows the older wizard considers her beneath him. It shows in every drippingly mocking reply and comment he makes to her. Sometimes Hermione just wants to storm out of the room.

"I indulge Draco so much." Really, she should've told Draco to take his racist father where the sun doesn't shine; that she didn't care to share the same breath with Lucius Malfoy, let alone attend dinners or family get togethers with the man.

Lucius is everything Hermione hates.

She loathes his very being.

Except that isn't completely true.

~o~

There is more to Lucius Malfoy than meets the eye.

It isn't just the vast wealth he has accumulated or the stern eye he has for keeping ahead of everyone else politically and financially. Lucius is intelligent. He's as charming as can be when he wants to be and when he's not in a foul mood, he's almost pleasant.

He's also terribly funny.

The impressions he makes. The little snide jokes.

She has to cover her mouth and pretend to hate him to not laugh too hard at times.

It isn't right to rub shoulders with a blood supremacist and share jokes with him.

Especially that time, Lucius did a perfect impression of Wally Warbeck, the famous singer's tone-deaf son. He kept looking over at her as if expecting to make her laugh, sensing she held something back.

She needs to keep pretending she hates him.

Except she doesn't anymore, does she?

They say familiarity breeds contempt. Hermione shakes her head: it's just the opposite.

All her life she hated Lucius Malfoy from a distance. Now that she knows him: it gets harder to hold onto the resentment she used to carry for so long towards him.

Of course, Lucius is _still_ detestable in some ways that will never change. Malfoy Senior's treatment of house-elves is something she'll never get over and makes her want to smack her father-in-law on the backside of his head...

...still, Lucius is not completely detestable in _all_ ways. When you get to know him, he has _some_ good qualities and characteristics.

And Hermione has gotten to know him. She has come to know Lucius intimately over all these family dinners and luncheons and recitals.

A little too well perhaps.

~o~

She knows many of the Malfoy family secrets, now that she is part of it.

The history of the Malfoys is a long and twisted dynasty that somehow ends with her, a muggleborn, mysteriously in the picture. The same people they looked down upon is now one of their family members.

She isn't complicit in their crimes, much of their history is questionable. Yet she does not take credit for any of their glories either. The Malfoy dynasty has had a long, good run and it wasn't by sheer luck. Draco's ancestors had some clever qualities that kept them from going amuck or squandering the family fortune.

Hermione thinks with a grim smile just how much further Lucius Malfoy has pushed the dynasty to increase and multiply their family's wealth.

It's almost admirable. Almost.

Yet she hates the man.

Hates.

And admires.

Just a bit.

~o~

Still she can't help but notice the resemblance between Draco and Lucius.

They look alike.

There are similarities, more than just physically.

They even think alike, except Draco is much more modern and open-minded whereas his father is stuck in his ways.

It almost sends a chill down her spine, however, when Lucius glances over at her and for a moment she isn't sure whether its Draco's eyes or his.

They are so similar.

She bites her lip. A thought occurs to her.

Draco has a hidden vulnerable side. Does that mean Lucius has one too, deep down? She thinks carelessly she would give almost anything to find that man's weakness.

It's almost disturbing to think of Lucius as vulnerable. Almost impossible to imagine.

He is the most invulnerable man she had yet to meet. Stern and cold to his core.

She wonders if he even closes his eyes to sleep.

~o~

She keeps thinking of his icy eyes as she lays down next to Draco.

~o~

Later, as Draco's hands slide over her leg and up under her dress, she's shocked by herself when she realizes she's still thinking of Lucius's face.

Specifically, his eyes, as she comes undone by Draco's touch.

It's a disturbing combination and she sinks her head in shame for days afterwards.

How could she fantasize as such?

It's wrong. It's so very, very wrong.

~o~

And somehow he knows.

Not Draco, but his father.

He senses the change in her, almost as if by his superiority he can breathe in her vulnerability, detect it, assess it, and realize she has the hots for him.

It's embarrassingly simple in a way.

Why did she deny it for so long?

Lucius Malfoy, whatever else she thought of him or his morals, was undeniably a gloriously attractive man. An imposing, strong man with thick arms and beautiful hair. Who also happened to look so much like the man she was in love with.

That was it. A mild attraction existed to Lucius because he looked so much like Draco.

Hermione shakes away her doubts: if Lucius didn't resemble Draco so much, she wouldn't even have spared him a second glance.

It's just the resemblance, she thinks, just the resemblance.

No more, no less.

~o~

Yet that isn't the whole truth.

Everyday she finds herself fantasizing about him more and more.

More and more while she is with her husband, she is dreaming in her head of Lucius Malfoy doing the same things that Draco Malfoy does to her.

She covets it.

She doesn't even understand why she must fantasize, but she must.

Fantasizing of Lucius Malfoy as she makes love to his son has become a habit for her.

A very, very bad habit. It's like cigarettes to her, or drinking to an alcoholic. Hermione Malfoy has to think of other people while she is with her own husband. What has become of her moral compass?

She should be ashamed, but she comes so hard every time that she can't help herself. The pattern repeats.

And she looks forward to more family dinners and meetings with the in-laws so she can pretend to completely hate and be indifferent to Lucius Malfoy, her father in law.

She can convince almost everyone, including herself.

But she does not fool the man himself.

~o~

He speaks over her shoulder one night while they are staying over at Malfoy Manor and Draco has slipped off early to bed. Her hands are in the sink, washing her dinner plate the muggle way, while Lucius Malfoy stands so close behind her she almost fears they will touch.

Her heartbeat is loud like drums in her own ears.

"I've noticed, Hermione," he drawls her name coolly. "That you've taken a liking to staring at me whenever we meet with my son. Pray, do you have anything to tell me, or are you that infatuated lately with my countenance that you can't stop looking?"

She wonders how she could ever lie to herself so deeply in this moment.

How she could miss something so obvious?

Nevertheless, Lucius Malfoy, has not missed anything. He's too observant and competitive to let anything go by unnoticed or unclaimed.

His hand presses into her lower back and her breathing nearly stops.

"Thank you, for informing me of this mishap," she lies to both herself and him. "I assure you it will stop from now on."

She is startled to hear Lucius Malfoy chuckle. It's the first time he has done anything so mundane in her presence and its highlighted by the fact that his powerful hand is still pressing hot onto her back. She gulps.

"What if I don't want it to stop, Miss Granger?"

His hand lowers from her back to her waist and presses the flesh firmly there.

She nearly chokes on her own breath.

.

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a/n: please review and share your thoughts, thanks

.


	2. Chapter 2

Thank you for reading, reviews appreciated to share your thoughts

x

* * *

 **~o~**

 **Father in Law Issues:**

 **Part 2**

 **~o~**

"What if I don't want it to stop, Miss Granger?" he purrs in her ear, his breath so close and hot that she can almost feel the ribbon of his lips.

His hand lowers from her back to her waist and presses firmly there, cupping the flesh like a possession he is considering purchasing. A rare antique or piano, he needs to touch her with his fingers first.

Hermione nearly chokes on her own breath and her long brunette hair rushes in a cascade down her back, brushing over his fingers. She hears him sharply inhale, as if scalded by the lashing of her long, _mudblood_ hair.

He moves away then. She hears the kitchen door slam after him as he leaves the kitchen.

Her breathing is still erratic and her heart pulsing.

She only came here to wash her dishes so the house-elves wouldn't have to. Now what had just happened...she can't even wrap her mind over the scene that occurred a few seconds ago. Why had he followed her into the kitchen, a place he would normally never be seen? The kitchen was a place for servants and house-elves, not the master of the manor.

It's so unlike him.

She shivers, the suds on her hands still submerging and flowing under the water and into the drain.

She is alone once more. She tries to find her breath.

But the imprint of his hot hand is still on her lower back.

It sends chills through her. The feeling of his masculinity pressing into her, like a leverage that she can't forget.

 _'He's teasing me,'_ she thinks.

But it can't be. Lucius Malfoy wouldn't stoop so low as to tease a mudblood, let alone his own daughter-in-law, would he? No, it can't be. She must be imagining things. Misconstruing his innocent, fatherly gesture. Or maybe one of his pureblood jokes to try to goad her into embarrassing herself. He must have some aim in mind.

Yet why else would he touch her like that, say something so dripping with dark insinuation, and then move away?

The implications are too much to bear that she shuts it out of her mind.

She doesn't want to know the answer. Not yet.

~o~

She is feverish that night.

"What is his game?" she can't help asking herself over and over again. What did he mean?

The implications are too uncomfortable to be borne.

Everything, her whole world, could be torn apart if she let's herself dwell too long on it.

She mustn't think about it. She must forget it.

The implications are becoming too real: fantasy edging into the domain of reality, where it shouldn't belong. Her fantasies, and damn it, she should've kept them where they belonged in her head.

She wishes they weren't still in Malfoy Manor until the next morning.

Draco is sleeping in his old room, she pads softly on tip-toes and slides into bed next to him, hoping not to wake him.

Draco's eyes open and blindly search for her in the darkness before his hands find her and start pulling off the dress.

She should say no.

She isn't in her right mind.

But she is feverish that night. Draco stands to benefit and he can't get enough of her. His lips and hands can't stop moving over her soft skin. She is so slick that they don't even have to use any spells.

Perhaps it's the knowledge that _he_ is in the other room, down the hall, that she becomes more vocal and starts to pant. She pant's Draco's name.

She hopes _he_ hears.

She wants to tease, and torture, him back.

 _Oh, what a monster I have become._

Yet she can't stop as her hips move erratically and Draco's hands dig deeper to hold on.

Finally it all stops.

The athletic young blonde comes even harder and swifter that he has in along while.

Draco has always been a grueling punisher that lasts and lasts before he finally explodes at the very last stroke.

Usually she finds it annoying how long he lasts. This time she is glad.

She hopes they made as much noise as possible.

And that _he_ didn't use any silencing spells on his room.

~o~

Perhaps she shouldn't have thought that her little show of loyalty to Draco would change anything. Perhaps she should stop lying to herself and acknowledge the real reason she made so much noise that night.

Perhaps it's all in her head, her sick imagination twisting out a gesture and a few words that didn't mean anything.

Except everything changes after that first touch.

Everything.

It's an invitation.

It's a tease.

It's the start of a slow decent into Lucius Malfoy's sick game.

Over breakfast the next morning, his eyes dart towards her.

She told him that she wouldn't stare at him anymore. She keeps her eyes firmly on the table and Draco.

He didn't say anything about him starting to reciprocate.

She feels his eyes burn through her, trying to goad her, into looking back.

It's almost scandalous but then Cissa is in France for months and not even there.

She wonders if their marriage is even in existence anymore or just a front.

Heaven knows, Narcissa Malfoy, is a beautiful women.

Yet when she reaches out for a butter knife on the table and Lucius grabs the same one, his hand brushes over her, and her eyes finally look up to meet his.

It stings to see the truth.

Yet he looks at her as if she, Hermione, the mudblood, is the most beautiful woman in the world.

She tries to forget his touch.

She certainly does not openly stare at him anymore.

Except Lucius Malfoy is not willing to forget or forgive.

~o~

 _He_ touches her more often after that.

Little subtle, innocent gestures that go unnoticed by everyone except Hermione and him. Hands on her back when they are in the same room and both their backs are turned to everyone. A pat on her shoulders if she says something that's supposed to be witty and he's pretending to laugh. A flicker of his hand to reach for something beside her and he happens to rub against her at the same time. A tap on her foot.

She knows this is a game now.

Any excuse to touch her. Innocently but goadingly to get back at her for how she used to stare.

Lucius Malfoy is a worse enemy and an even worse crush.

He's deliberately doing everything to mortify her and make her uncomfortable.

But what does he really hope to achieve?

It's so confusing that sometimes she feels the touches are completely innocent, like he's just being a normal father-in-law, the pat on the shoulders, leaning in when speaking to her.

Draco notices nothing. She wouldn't even notice anything herself if it wasn't for her raised heartbeat slamming in her chest each time.

Both Hermione and him are good at pretending. They've pretended so far to tolerate each other. Then they've pretended to not tolerate each other. So much pretending. She isn't even sure what she's pretending anymore.

Who is she now? A wife? A daughter? A daughter in law? A pureblood family with a mudblood. A societal joke. A heroine. A war hero and a war criminal, sharing the same table, breaking the same bread. A blonde man with a small brunette twisted inside his arms, crushing the life out of her with desire and games.

How can she tell Draco that she needs to get away from his family and not see his father anymore before this goes too far? That she doesn't want to have anymore overnight stays at Malfoy Manor or weekend visits with his family?

How can she explain the inexplicable, something so subtle that no lines have been crossed so far?

Draco loves his father above all things. He adores Lucius. There's no way she can tell Draco without setting off a cascade of issues. Father in law issues. Draco would blame her.

Draco could never understand or think of his father in any bad away. He'd think that she was projecting her own twisted views of his father to mistrust him.

How much longer does she have to pretend everything is alright. She feels herself strained to the limit.

She is Hermione Granger, she is not that immoral, whatever she dreams are just dreams, mere fantasies, harmless and kept safely away from reality.

There is no way Lucius Malfoy, her father-in-law, would know or act on it.

There is no way.

~O~

She hears a knock on her door.

~O~

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please review if you like this thanks


	3. Chapter 3

**~o~**

 **Father in Law Issues:**

 **Part 3**

 **~o~**

She hears a knock on her door.

She is in her champagne-coloured nightgown, combing her hair, by the boudoir in the guest room.

Her heart stops for a second.

Is it _him?_

She feels she will almost throw up.

He better not have followed her in here.

He can't do this.

Her nerves are strained as the door handle turns and a blonde head enters.

"Oh god."

She is washed over with waves of relief as the tall, blonde man coming into the room is none other than her husband, Draco.

Draco glances over at her and smiles with pursed lips.

She tries to smile back but she is overcome with guilt. Draco doesn't deserve this.

She had thought it had been _him_ coming into the room.

"Are you feeling alright?" Draco stoops over and places a firm kiss on the top of her head. "Why did you supper leave so early? Father was confused by your rudeness."

She bites back the reply she really is thinking: _"I left Draco so I wouldn't have to sit side by side to your father, anymore, Draco and pretend that neither he or I are playing some twisted psychosexual game with each other."_

Instead, she searches for his eyes with her warm, brown ones. She stares darkly at him and is reminded once more of his father's matching icy, grey eyes. She has to shake her head and look away again. There's no being honest with her husband when her own thoughts and desires have made her dishonest in her heart.

Yet she didn't choose any of this, not deliberately.

She could still choose to get out.

She says it bluntly. "I don't want to see your family anymore."

Draco's eyes widen as if she couldn't have said anything more hurtful.

"Why?"

Draco's voice is already full of accusation and a temper waiting to explode.

" _Why_ Hermione?"

She has to lie quickly and give him a reason other than the truth. She can't have Draco exploding. Though she knows what she is about to say is going to hurt him as deeply. Well, almost.

"I don't want to lie to myself...by being seen with Death Eaters anymore."

"Dammit, Hermione," Draco explodes into a fit of rage and swears.

"It's not you."

His face turns red. "You can't just let the war go? I thought we got over this!"

"It's not you," she repeats. "I forgive you. You actually repented for your actions, your father however—"

"No, Hermione, you will not accuse my father, he has amended his ways. The accusations against him were all repealed, you can't just—"

She stands up to him then. Because, truthfully, touching and flirting aside, Draco's' father really is an irreconcilable bastard who has never apologized for any of his actions during the war. She should never have been expected to brush shoulders with him, or god damn play footsies, with Draco's father till the bastard actually apologized to her personally for everything he put her kind through both before and during the war.

"Yes I can!" she finally shouts. "I can refuse to associate with your father, till he actually makes the effort to apologize for his actions. Not once has he actually showed the slightest bit of remorse or even remotely attempted to not seem like the same blood supremacist, racist he has always been!"

Draco's face becomes redder and redder, his eyes have a look of stone and pure hate. To insult Draco's father in any way is akin to lighting a match or insulting Draco himself.

"Don't take it personally," she says almost apologetically.

"My father," Draco shouts. "has done _everything_ to make you feel welcome into this family, despite whatever his personal beliefs still are."

She laughs. "Oh, yes, as if he doesn't still consider me like scum underneath his shoe!"

"How dare you," Draco looks almost tempted to strike her.

"It's true and you know it!"

Finally, Draco looses his temper altogether and grabs her by the arm to shake her. "Hermione, you will not do this. Do you know what my father actually said the other day?"

Her face turns scarlet. She's afraid now. What kind of poison could Lucius Malfoy had put in his own son's mind?

"God dammit," Draco swears. "He told me you're like the daughter he never had. He actually likes you!"

Hermione's mouth falls open. Her brain is failing to process how anyone could tell such a blatant lie to his own son.

"H—he said that?"

Good Merlin, Lucius Malfoy is an even bigger hypocrite and bullshitter than she thought he was. What a master manipulator Lucius Malfoy is. To cover his own tracks by having his son believe that he finally warmed up to playing happy family with her, the mudblood.

She is tempted to laugh. In what universe did Lucius Malfoy practically grope his own daughter.

"He's a bloody liar," Hermione finally snarls.

It's at that moment that Draco loses his temper completely and slaps her on the face.

She can't believe Draco has just hit her.

They both stare in shock at the reddened mark on her cheek before she turns around and rushes out the hallway.

"Hermione, wait! God damn it, I'm sorry," Draco mutters after her

She is running down the hall when, of course, she has to run into none other than him.

Her face and body collide into his broad chest as he blocks her way.

What, was he waiting in the dark, for her to run into him like a mouse into a trap?

She tries to get off him but his arms attempt to hold her to him for a second before she steps on his foot and demands her release.

She stares up at him in disgust and pushes herself away from him. She's so totally over whatever bullcrap they had been playing at. She doesn't care how attractive Lucius Malfoy is, he's still a stone cold hearted bastard and she is still a married woman. And now everything was going to tatters with Draco. Perhaps this is Lucius Malfoy's ultimate plan to get rid of the mudblood in his family. Perhaps this is his ultimate plan.

"What are you doing here?" she says, with none of her resentment hidden any longer.

He chuckles and stands even taller over her. "This is my house, Miss Granger. And I couldn't help but hear an altercation between you and my son. Is everything alright, you look out of sorts?" He stares with a pleased look at the mark on her face, as if he's somehow glad that her son has hit her.

 _He's despicable,_ she thinks. Almost as despicable as herself when she made the mistake of fantasizing about her own father in law. She never felt so disgusted with herself. But then she is so over him right now, everything she ever felt is back to hate. Absolute hate.

Before she can answer and tell Lucius just how much she hates him to his face, Draco is behind her and talking to both of them.

"Father, did you find Hermione?"

"Yes, she's here. Draco," Lucius chides his son. "I'm afraid I can't abide by this midnight drama between you two love birds." He drawls and his look returns smolderingly to Hermione. "Perhaps you had better return home and organize yourselves til you're both feeling in better sorts."

He tries to lay a hand softly across her injured cheek but Hermione is having none of it. She dodges out of his reach.

"Yes, father, I'm sorry. Hermione and I were just about to leave."

"There's no rush, perhaps Hermione I could help you with your wound?" Lucius blinks innocently and attempts to touch her face again.

She frowns at him, warning Lucius to back off.

"Now, now, Hermione, that is quite a startling shade of red on your face, did you have a fall?"

"No," she spits. "I didn't have _any_ accidents."

Draco sinks in shame and Hermione regrets, almost for a split second, for making Draco lose his temper. Perhaps he sensed the distance between them lately. But then Draco had no right to hit her and she is not ready to forgive him yet, whatever her own mistakes.

"I'm leaving," Hermione says and burns holes through Lucius. "You can stay here, Draco."

Lucius chuckles again as she walks away and towards one of the many elegant fireplaces with a Floo network in the hallway.

For a moment, she remembers she is still wearing her nightgown and she realizes Lucius is ogling her every move.

She feels a deeper disgust with herself before finally grabbing a handful of Floo powder.

She wishes Lucius's eyes weren't on her as she disappears into the fire.

But they are.

His cold, calculating grey eyes burn through her more openly than ever.

 **~o~**

His eyes watch her pert derriere, perfectly hallowed out by the tight nightgown she wears, as she moves towards the Floo Network. The nightgown is champagne coloured and almost blends in with her pale flesh to make her seem naked and he can almost make out every delicious detail of her body underneath the thin fabric.

The older wizard is almost distracted by the all-consuming shapeliness and delicate curves of her body, showing through the gown, before he realizes she is leaving.

The moment Hermione is gone, Lucius Malfoy turns to his son with a most bizarre look in his eye. Part of it is calculating, but part of it is almost mocking sympathy.

"What exactly did you _do_ , Draco?" he hisses as he looms large over his son.

Draco gulps guiltily and his eyes shift between the floor and his father's mirror-like gaze.

"Father, we had a fight," Draco coughs out shamefully. "I lost...I lost—"

"You lost your temper?" Lucius completes his sentence for him. _"Oh Draco,"_ he purrs sardonically, as if driven to despair.

"Yes." Draco nods then his hands are in his hair pulling at the short blonde strands. "I didn't mean to."

"You should've controlled yourself better, son. I'm disappointed beyond words, and to poor Hermione, how could you!"

"Father, I don't know what happened. I lost my temper!"

"Yes, indeed you must have lost control of your very wits!" Lucius's eyes freeze over with a purely Slytherin look. "What, pray if I may ask, was the source of contention between you, son?"

Draco is slow to say his next sentence. "You, father."

Lucius's eyebrows raise. "Me?" he asks innocently. "Why would you argue over _me_?"

Draco rubs at his arm uncomfortably and shifts. "The war, specifically."

"Ah, I see."

"Nothing you didn't do years, eons, ago."

"Of course." Lucius lets out a palpable breath of relief.

"I defended you, of course," Draco adds quickly. "She seems to think that you owe her some personal apology for the war and being on the other side of it when you had no choice yourself. Voldemort forced your hand, father, you told me, just as he forced me—"

Lucius clicks his tongue. "Now, now. Perhaps she has some point. Whatever our reasons, I have never apologized for it personally, at least not to her."

"You're agreeing with her?" Draco's eyebrows raise, visibly confused by his reaction and absence of anger. "Hermione seemed to suggest she wanted nothing more to do with you or mother on account of the past. I thought it was completely unfair of course and to bring it up now, of all times—"

"Silence, Draco. I think I can see where your wife may be correct, I should've apologized to her. I will do so now." He made a move towards the Floo network out of which Hermione just left.

"Right now?"

Lucius appears thunderous. "Do not question me. Your wife is already angry enough as is. I suggest you keep to the Manor until she calls for you. Right now is a very sensitive, er delicate, time for her, I suppose this is the first time you have struck her?"

"Yes."

Draco hangs his head low as Lucius had hoped. His son is almost like a whipped puppy and so predictable to manipulate.

"Good then stay here while I talk to her. I doubt she will forgive you yet. She is a woman in great distress, Draco, have some sensitivity!"

"But I want to go and apologize to her, father, I don't understand why this is the right time for you to be getting involved."

"Enough, Draco! Do as your told. Stay here and wait for me to come back." The older wizard pauses to sneer. "I will set things right in this family!"

Yet as he turns around from his son and grabs a pinch of Floo powder, all sympathy and mock indignation are gone from his face. Instead, Lucius looks like a cat about to collect the cream...

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A/N: Thank you for reading and reviewing, more twisted lumione coming up next ;)

I know this chapter took an unexpected turn here, I didn't expect this either but, please don't get too angry at Draco. I think any man, unconsciously or not, can sense when his gf/wife is distancing herself or thinking of straying, so it may be underlying tensions bubbling up in him. not that I excuse domestic violence...though she may end up leaving draco temporarily and yes Lucius is a master manipulator of the first order! stay tuned and happy summer


	4. Chapter 4

**Warning for language and make-up**

* * *

 **~o~**

 **Father in Law Issues:**

 **Part 4**

 **~o~**

She is in shock as she arrives back at their classy, small apartment in Diagon Alley.

She can't believe how badly the night has gone. How can everything have gone so wrong, so quickly?

Two months ago, Draco and her were completely in love as ever. Now? She's fantasizing about his father, or rather she had just stopped fantasizing about his father and started hating him again. She even told Draco she didn't want to see his father anymore. And Draco had actually slapped her over an argument about his father.

 _Everything is getting topsy turvy._

Hermione feels her cheek. It's a bit sensitive but otherwise fine.

Draco didn't actually hurt her, it was more the shock that he lifted his hand to her. It's not like her husband to be violent.

She's the one who punched Draco as a kid. Even then, when he was a snotty kid, Draco refused to reciprocate or hurt a girl in any way—even a mudblood girl. He hurt her with his words, of course, but then she soon discovered his bullying was more of a way of covering up his conflicting feelings for her. Their fairytale whirlwind romance, after the war, was as much a surprise to her as anyone. Yet she never regretted a moment of it. Draco became exactly the man she wanted to marry and spend her life with, dependable and committed.

"What has become of us now?"

She feels her cheek again in shock. He didn't even slap her hard but it's the gesture, the violence of the action, that hurts her. She has pushed him before, when arguing, but Draco has never pushed back or been even remotely violent.

It's the first time Draco has hit her in any way and she wonders if part of his anger is an unconscious reaction to the tensions brooding between her and his father.

Did Draco know?

Did he sense the change in her?

It's impossible, of course. Draco had never seen the way Lucius touched her that one time they were alone in the kitchen. And Draco had no idea about the fantasies she sometimes got carried away with in her head.

There's no way Draco could know that could he?

"He doesn't know and I haven't actually done anything wrong," she tries to tell herself.

The feeling of guilt doesn't quite go away.

She isn't sure who she's more angry at: herself or Draco or his father.

His father truly had provoked her lately, what with all those insinuating touches and glances her way.

Not that she was innocent. She started it. Damn it, she did start it, didn't she?

But why did Draco have to go berserk over it?

Her marriage with Draco couldn't break up over this could it?

Her eyes fill with tears.

~O~

Footsteps wander out of the fireplace and into their living room.

"Draco is that you?"

Her eyes are still wet and she's not sure she's ready to forgive her husband. But suddenly she's glad she's not alone in their little studio apartment anymore. She loves Draco, she truly does. And as much as she's angered by his actions this night, more than anything she just wants to know why. Why did he strike her?

They need to talk. They can't let this, whatever issues they were having with his father, destroy their relationship.

Draco had never hurt so much as a hair on her head before tonight. He didn't slap her hard, beyond leaving her face a bit red temporarily, yet it had been shocking he had done it.

Did he slap her because somehow he knew what was going on between her and his father?

She couldn't blame him in that case.

She hated herself as much as Lucius for becoming embroiled in this heated attraction, even if no lines had actually been crossed yet. She was still stupid for making the mistake of fantasizing about his dad. She should never have done it.

She was all wrong to do that.

Yet how could Draco know? She is haunted by the possibility. Did he see into her mind and that's why he lost his temper?

She'd be shocked too if she looked into Draco's mind and saw him fantasizing about her mom or sister or Ginny or anyone close to her. It would be a betrayal of trust, even without any actions behind it.

"Draco are you there? Talk to me."

She hears his footsteps approach her on the couch before she hears the flicker of the wand.

"Why did you turn off the lights?"

He chuckles lowly and then she finally hears him speak, even though she can't make out his face in the darkness.

"I just wanted to apologize, my love," the voice drawls.

She's slightly taken aback by how calm, and deeper toned, his voice sounds. Draco is usually much more emotional, let alone at a time like this, when they just had a major fight. But she's soothed by the possibility that he is truly remorseful and has come to apologize.

He sits beside her on the couch and feels his hand grab hers in the darkness.

"Draco, I shouldn't have said those things either, I provoked you, it's just your father—"

"Shhh. _I know_."

"You do?" Hermione gulps. What does Draco know about his father?

Yet he doesn't seem to be angry.

"It's alright," he coos.

His hand brushes her hair, caressing the soft brown tendrils.

Hermione closes her eyes for a moment as she relaxes into his soothing touch as he begins kissing her but then her eyes open a second later when she feels something wrong.

His hand is still in her hair and his tongue down her throat so she can't speak. She doesn't want to stop kissing him, it feels so good but suddenly every sense in her body is telling her something is wrong.

As he leans over her on the couch, placing his hand on her thigh, Hermione nearly jolts out of her skin when she reaches up and feels his hair.

Short, silky blonde hair.

For some reason, she thought it would be longer hair.

She feels so guilty for thinking about him. Even at this time.

"Draco, hold on," she tells him. "I need the lights on."

"Why?" he whispers in her ear, pleadingly nibbling at the flesh there.

She pushes him gently away and sits up.

"I need to see it is you, that's all." She is really thinking: no more fantasy. When she makes love to her husband, she needed to be thinking of him and only him. No more Lucius or anything else coming in between them, even in her mind.

She didn't want to lose him.

"Is that alright?"

Draco kisses her once more before patting her bottom. "Go ahead. I will enjoy this more seeing you fully."

She blushes and turns to get her wand. After swishing it several times to turn on all the lamps in their house, she is relieved to be staring at the adoring face of her husband.

"Oh, Draco, I don't know what's happening to me."

She felt so sure a moment ago that it was Lucius not Draco who was sticking his tongue down her throat.

Draco grabs her by the hands and leads her to the sofa.

"Relax, Hermione. I am here. There's to be no more distance between us. I'm sorry we ever fought." His lips stop speaking and he begins kissing her again. At the same time, his hands roughly begin to push down her nightgown so that she is completely naked.

Draco stares with heavy-lidded, dark eyes at her body, raking in every detail in the full light.

She's startled by his appreciation. He's seen her so many times before. but then it's like the first time again, as he pulls her towards him and starts kneading and playing with her breasts.

"Oh, Draco, Draco."

"Shhh," he hushes her lips with biting kisses. "Don't call me that."

"Why not?"

He grins sardonically. "Call me daddy."

She thinks it's incredibly weird, but she agrees.

He slaps her on the bottom and she cries in pleasure.

This is a new, rougher side of him she hasn't seen before.

She knows she shouldn't take pleasure in him being a bit disrespectful towards her, but her incredible desire for his body overwhelms all sensitivity, shame or anger she had towards him earlier that night.

His manhood is thicker than ever and pressing into her.

She hisses in pleasure as they tumble down onto the sofa with him on top of her. Draco, only Draco, is on her mind and in her eyes as he takes her.

Why, oh why, she thinks as he drives her close to finishing, did she ever make the mistake of fantasizing about his dad?

Her fingernails scrape down his back as her mouth erupts in soft moans and she clenches her eyes shut.

He is so much better, her husband is flawed but amazing.

Oh, god, oh Merlin,

"I am yours," she spouts. "Only yours."

His smirk is odd yet he shoves her down on his throbbing member again as she hisses in a combination of pain and pleasure.

.

.

.

* * *

a/n: Uh oh, Hermione what just happened? Yes, a major plot twist might be coming up. And yes Lucius may be involved in a huge betrayal, the story darkens...please review! thx


	5. Chapter 5

**_~o~_**

 ** _Father in Law Issues:_**

 ** _Part 5_**

 ** _~o~_**

Hermione wakes up in the middle of the night, at home, with a blistering headache.

The first thing she thinks when she reaches over to get up is where is Draco. It's 3am.

She stares longingly at the empty spot on the bed beside her.

She reddens as she remembers the way he held her.

There is still an ache deep inside her from what they did earlier in the night. A deep satisfying ache.

One of their best nights in a long while, despite their arguments earlier.

Drearily, Hermione wonders why he left in the middle of the night, without telling her where he was going or leaving a note. Did he just up and decide to go back to Malfoy Manor?

It wasn't like Draco to just wander off like that.

Then she notices the bottle of deep sleep potion left by her bed stand table. Is that why she couldn't remember anything after their lovemaking?

She blushes as she stares down at her own body. Her hair is a post-coital mess still and her nightgown somehow mysteriously is back on after he ripped it off last night. So it certainly wasn't a dream, no matter how tidy Draco was about hiding all evidence afterwards.

 _Draco, just leave a note,_ she thinks as she slips out of bed and into her house shoes, _Don't make me worry._

Luckily, it's a Sunday so she doesn't have to go to work or do anything early this morning.

She can take her time to drink her coffee, which she does.

At least all her troubles and worries about Malfoy Manor and being a member of their family are all over.

She told Draco she wanted her distance and there was no way he could deny her this simple request. Especially after all they want through this night to tear them apart and then unite them back together.

As she sips a green tea and pours over the Saturday edition of the Daily Prophet, which she hadn't got to read while they were at the manor...The brunette looks up in surprise to see several owls waiting outside her window to be let in.

 _Owls in the middle of the night? Really?_

They fly in with letters clutched in their beak and drop them in her lap. She nuzzles one of the owls, giving him a piece of toast, as she sorts through the letters they carry. She relaxes as she reads the names on the envelopes.

There's two letters.

One from Draco.

 _Odd. Why would he write her after leaving the house instead of just leaving a note?_

She shakes her head. Maybe Draco's feeling so guilty he felt he had to make a written apology in addition to last night, or whatever.

The other letter, on fine grey stationary paper, is addressed from Lucius Malfoy.

Why is his father also writing her so early on a Sunday morning?

Hermione purses her lips and decides to open the one from Draco first.

She is not prepared for what she reads.

Her eyebrows raise and nearly hit the ceiling.

 ** _"To my beloved wife,_**

 ** _Hermione, I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened—it was like I was not myself last night._**

 ** _Everything, all the issues, the distance between us—surely you've noticed?—came bubbling up and my temper was blown._**

 ** _I can't believe I acted such an idiot.  
_**

 ** _I don't expect you to forgive me yet, that would be asking too much._**

 ** _My father has advised me to stay at the Manor until we can reach a resolution._**

 ** _I just want to know one thing Hermione, are you alright?_**

 ** _Again, I'm so sorry, and words will never suffice to say how much I've screwed up and may no longer deserve you._**

 ** _You are still my everything, the reason I woke up and moved on from the war and its trauma. Yet I will understand you need your distance from me till you can trust me again._**

 ** _Please write back to let me know you are okay? I'm so worried after what my father said._**

 ** _Please._**

 _ **Your repentant husband,**_

 _ **Draco.**_

 _ **PS. C**_ _ ** _ **an you please unlock the wards on the flat?**_ I miss you so much I can hardly breath. Let me in."**_

Hermione feels her throat constricting and she holds back a yelp.

What on earth is Draco talking about?

Yes, he did need to ask for forgiveness and apologize again. But they already discussed this last night, she was fine and she forgave him for the most part...and then they slept together. Why on earth was Draco saying that he spent the night at Malfoy Manor?

Is this some twisted joke or repartee she's missing?

Hermione wonders if someone is trying to pull the rug from out under her.

The letter from Lucius Malfoy is nowhere near as confusing but nonetheless sets off some red flags in her mind.

 ** _"Dear Hermione,_**

 ** _Your role as a daughter-in-law is critical to me and to the future of this family._**

 ** _Do not let our past misgivings get in the way of you seeing what is really important._**

 ** _I will trust you understand that I do not exaggerate when I say that the legacy and good-reputation of the Malfoy name is of the utmost importance to me. We cannot let our name be dragged through the mud.  
_**

 ** _Therefore, it distressed me to no end to hear you and my son have a domestic dispute last night._**

 ** _Let me assure you Hermione, this is NOT acceptable._**

 ** _I thought I raised my son better than to strike a witch, let alone his wife. I assure you this will NOT happen again, Hermione—at least not under my roof and supervision. I should've protected you, even if necessary to protect you from my own son._**

 ** _There are some other matters, too, that I feel have long been overdue and unaddressed within our little circle. You know what I'm referring to._**

 ** _Please allow me, to call upon you tomorrow afternoon, to straighten these matters out._**

 ** _I cannot have anymore turmoil within the family._**

 ** _Please trust me to have your best interests in hand,_**

 ** _Lucius Abraxas Malfoy."_**

The letter is signed and stamped with the Malfoy family seal on top.

Hermione re-reads the letter twice before she sits down, her legs shaking as she clutches the letters in her hand. If she were anymore confused, her head might explode.

Why exactly is Lucius Malfoy acting so concerned and upset about what Draco did to her? Why is he even writing her in the middle of the night, as if he's been awake and monitoring the whole situation. This is what scares her most.

He can't really be that sorry can he? He seemed more condescending rather than concerned for her well-being last night.

Or did he mean to apologize for other things? What exactly was he referring to when he said that she knew what he meant to apologize for?

She can't understand what is going on with either her husband or his father.

Though she has a terrible feeling the two are connected...and she'd rather not think of how.

She knew she was getting into a weird situation by marrying into a old, pureblood wizarding family. Yet she never expected it to be this weird.

She wanders back to their bedroom and sits down in a haze of mental fog, before she cries herself to sleep.

She'd rather not _think_ , she'd rather not think or dwell upon what she thinks she knows.

Or how her body still burns with fire for the illicit sex she had with...him...only a few hours ago.

 **~o~**

 _ **Meanwhile...**_

Shadows and light flicker across the smooth wooden and marble floors, so clean and polished, they look almost like a mirror in the dark, lush, paneled interiors of Malfoy Manor.

Draco nurses a glass of chardonnay in his hand. His father grasps his diamond cane as he stares into the fireplace.

"Have you heard from your wife?"

"She doesn't want to talk to me."

"Understandable. But you must work harder. You chose a wife with a _temper,_ " he reprimands his son.

"What do you want me to do? Break down the doors, she warded the flat against me father, I can't go back." His grey eyes are slightly reddened from tears. "Not until she lets me back in. Or forgives me."

"How long do you think it will be before she forgives you?"

"I don't know. We've never had a fight that's lasted more than a day. This is one of our worst fights." He takes another sip of his glass, his face still mournful.

"Then we don't have much time," Lucius says, more to himself, than his son.

"Time for what?" Draco asks, not missing his father's puzzling words.

"Nothing. My boy you have done a great disservice to our family...Have you ever thought what it might look like if she were to divorce you? Or how it would disgrace the family if she were to tell lies about us to the tabloids?"

"I didn't beat her up. I wouldn't do that!"

"You did raise a hand to her?"

"I slapped her. Once in three years and I'm sorry everyone thinks I'm some kind of monster now!"

"How well do you know your wife, this could easily turn against us. She is a decorated war hero. To get on her wrong side..." Lucius's eyes darken before he turns to his son frothily. "You need to control your wife. A man who cannot rule his family, is unfit to rule anything else. Haven't I always taught you this Draco?"

Draco stares at the embers in the fireplace, his eyes filling with tears again. "She hasn't been the same lately. I don't know what's come over her...She's changed."

Lucius scoffs. "Women have a habit of doing that. You must learn to keep up and keep the upper hand."

"Did mother change?"

"No, Narcissa has always been her inconstant, vain self. A ball of insipid energy. Her unpredictability is entirely predictable... Shopping, self-indulgence, foreign trips..." His voice trails off.

"Hermione is not like that."

"No, she is a rare jewel, indeed. I've never met a woman so simultaneously lacking in vanity and yet ravishing in her own almost disturbing way..."

Draco's mouth falls open to hear his father say what almost sounds like a compliment to his daughter in law. But Lucius quickly changes his tone and his lips curls in seeming disgust. "...a rare jewel, like a flash of sapphire.. _.from mud._ " Lucius concludes. "I knew she had a core of fire when you introduced us. The Astoria girl would've been easier for you to control...But Hermione is indomitable, like a wild horse...that just needs to be broken in by a trained master."

Draco frowns at his father. "How would you know?"

Lucius sneers and waves off his son's suspicions. "I've read people all my life, I can read people from a mile away and their true character far better than you, my son. I can see these things. You should've listened to your parents advice. Astoria was more on your level, and she suited the family well."

"You're not just saying that because she's a mud-muggleborn?" Draco says cautiously, unsure if Hermione's claims that his father was still bigoted were true.

"No, actually." Lucius pauses. "In many ways Hermione is the _superior_ choice to the Greengrass girl...but I don't see your marriage lasting from how rocky it gets and how many fights you get into. You need to control your wife better."

Draco feels his stomach getting upset from a mixture of too much chardonnay and too many contradicting point of views and damning advice from his father. "Maybe you should stay out of my marriage, father, no offense, but I think you and mother are hardly examples...you don't even spend that much time together. Why don't you tell mother to come back from France? We need her here. And, for your information, my marriage is not crumbling."

"No one thinks it does," Lucius whispers with raised brows, "until it does crumble."

"I'm going to bed!" Draco calls over his shoulder, still drinking himself into a stupor. "I'll make amends with Hermione tomorrow."

"I count on it," Lucius says as he walks down the long hallway from the parlour.

~o~


	6. Chapter 6

**~O~**

 **Father in Law Issues:**

 **Part 6**

 **~o~**

The morning passes slowly.

Each second on the clock ticks by at any achingly slow pace. _Tick-tick-tick._

So far she's gone through restlessly reading several copies of the local newspaper and then mulling over last night in her head over and over again. _The argument. The nightgown. The anger in Draco's eyes. The desperate, punishing makeup sex...and always his father, at the back of her mind._

She knows it's only a matter of time before Draco comes back to their apartment and apologizes again when she doesn't reply to his letter. Or rather several letters all piling up, repeatedly asking if she's alright.

 _Shouldn't he know I'm not alright? Shouldn't he know that I have every reason to be upset? Why bother asking?_

If she'd hadn't been so desperate for his touch last night, in the trauma and heat of it all, she wouldn't have rushed into that mistake last night. Merlin, it burns her with humiliation now...so deep that she thinks she might be slipping into psychosis or denial ...Because she can't face it.

She can't face the truth of what happened that night.

Her whole body rocks back in and forth as she self-soothes

Sometime, though, she knows the truth of it is going to snap her right in half...when she finds out and looks either Lucius or Draco in the eye and hears the truth from their lips.

She only knows she regrets seeking comfort in his body so soon.

Especially if it turns out, Draco really hadn't been there at all that night.

Then that would leave...only one possibility.

A possibility that would shake her, and their entire marriage, to the core.

She does not want to face it right now.

She can't face it.

She'll break down and might not recover if she lifts the veil of isn't what their marriage is built upon.

The owls keep pecking at her window in a chorus of endless _hoo-hoo-hoos_ til she finally snaps. Bitterly, she opens the window to let the owls bring in more mail before she shuts it closed again and hopes no more come.

Yet, stubbornly, she refuses to reply to any correspondence from the Malfoy family.

She throws down the letters upon the table and goes back to trying to read the papers.

But it's so fucking hard to concentrate.

The Malfoys, good Merlin, what has she gotten herself into by marrying into this family?

Right now, she needs distance not only from Lucius, but from his son, for the sake of her own sanity. Before this family drives her mad.

She can't handle either one right now.

She can't face the whole traumatic matter of last night. There's too many questions unanswered that Draco, not herself, has to answer. If she were willing to listen at the moment. She'd rather pretend the whole night didn't happen just now.

 _"I can't keep running from the truth or ignoring Draco, forever,"_ she tells herself. Yet she brushes her long brown hair back, taming it with a few detangling spells, before wrapping a scarf around her neck. She gets dressed in jeans and an old Weasley handknit cardigan and is about to leave to visit Ginny and Harry's when Draco comes bursting through the Floo Network before she can escape.

"Hermione," Draco begins and tries to grab her by her hand.

"What do you want?" she snaps.

"You know what happened. I'm sorry."

"Oh so you remember now? Funny seemed to me like you had amnesia or something."

Draco narrows his eyes at her. "When have I ever denied I hit you?"

"Stop. Just stop!" She moves her hand and whole body away from him.

Draco stops trying to grab her but his grey eyes are wide and large like a hurt animal. "What is it? What's wrong?"

She doesn't want to hear anything he has to say. How can he explain his bizarre behavior except if it was his father? Which is the last thing she wants or needs to have confirmed right now. The truth frightens her even more than the fight they had.

"What's wrong?" she bites at the inside of her cheek. "I don't know, Draco, where to begin?" Her eyes well up and her voice threatens to choke, her throat feels like it's being constricted by a rope. "Our whole married life seems to be a lie. You've been drinking haven't you? I pray to god that is why you can't remember."

Draco breaks down at her display of emotion. "Remember what?!" Draco asks. "Okay I might've taken been drinking while you were gone. What did you expect? You left, you were mad, my father is mad at me...I felt like I was back to being that man after the war who couldn't even look himself in the mirror."

She scoffs. This type of act would've pulled her sympathy chords right at the beginning of their relationship, but any anymore.

And he hasn't answered her question directly.

"Is that why you left in the night?" she smirks with tears falling down her face. Why, if he's so damn concerned about her, or intent on keeping what they have, did he leave her this morning without so much as a note? Why did he choose to spend the night drinking instead of comforting her, apparently? Why did it take this domestic fight to get him to even admit he had a drinking problem? This is what she needs Draco to answer and she's not going to make him say it. He needs to say it on his own, he's not sober, until then, he's just wasting her time.

"Move aside," she says in a threatening monotone and points at the fireplace he stands in front of, blocking her escape.

"Hermione, why are you doing this? Didn't I say I'm sorry, what more do you want me to do? I was trying to give you space."

"You're right I do need space. Now move aside, you're blocking my way."

"Can we please talk this through? Don't go." Draco places his arms at either side of her, locking her gaze in with hers. She rolls her eyes at his attempt at connecting this way.

"I don't want to talk to you right now."

"What about my letter...Didn't you read my letter?"

She crosses her arms over her chest, almost hugging herself to self-soothe. "Draco it's because I read your letter that I'm more mad than I was last night. Honestly, what are you and your father playing at?" _Is this a collaborative effort now to screw with her head?_

His eyes bore into her and she stands back a little, back against the wall and defensively digs for her wand in her pocket.

Draco can't keep his eyes off her, he looks startled.

"Playing at?" he asks with watering eyes.

"Do you think I wouldn't see how your father is involved?" Her face turns scarlet "Or how you're both lying to me."

"What are you talking about?

Hermione laughs."Really?"

"Hermione I TOLD you I'm SORRY! How many more times do I have to say it?"

"I don't know." She looks down at her feet, just counting the seconds til she can get the hell away from him. She can't really stand being near him right now. She's too mad. "I've got to go before this drives me mad." She is so close to losing her temper right now. With the denial that can barely be contained.

"Merlin. Can I EXPLAIN?"

"Draco," she shouts his name and finally pushes him back from her, out of the way of the fireplace. "I'm leaving right now. Don't try to follow me or be here when I get back. You said I needed distance in your letter, you were right. I do."

He looks absolutely shattered and heartbroken but she can't help a tiny part of her that wants to hurt him right now.

"I'm going." She grabs a handful of Floo powder. "Ministry of Magic," she tells the fireplace, ignoring Draco.

"Hermione, I'm sorry-" are his last words before she disappears in the green flames.

She pops out on the other side of a busy Muggle street and makes her way towards the secret entrance.

There are tears down her cheeks.

She's so confused.

So angry at Draco.

Angry at herself too.

Why does she want to hurt both him and herself by pushing him away?

Is it because she knows _she_ may have betrayed him?

~o~

"Merlin, I'm a bloody trainwreck." She stops in her tracks and considers turning around.

Draco will still be at the house for a few more minutes. There's still time. They can tell each other the truth and they can apologize sincerely now. They can salvage this marriage. Maybe she should just go back and tell Draco she's sorry for running from him and they can talk this all over.

If she stopped ignoring Draco and pushing him away, they could have a proper discussion like they always do and then be on the same page again. Even if things weren't the same again, she could let go of the grudge towards Draco at the very least.

The grudge she held against herself...however...that might never go.

Her cheeks burn.

She should've known something was up with Draco last night, not just after the slap, but his erratic behaviour last night, and then his seeming amnesia in the letters he sent last night or his words this morning. Everything he omitted to say...which confirmed her fears.

She's about to turn back and head home to fight for Draco and her relationship when she collides into an owl flying directly at her.

"Merlin!" The owl nearly collides into her face and both her and the bird screech as they dodge each other.

Finally, the distraught bird drops the letter on her head and she stands up straight.

 _God, no_. It's another silver parchment paper obviously addressed from the Malfoys.

It's from the father, not the son.

She holds the letter with shaking hands, staring at his calligraphy the longest time and considers tearing it up, unopened.

But then something Gryffindor and brave stirs in her. Perhaps she needs to face up to the one man that had the answers. Especially if she is to stop running from Draco or being afraid of the answers.

She opens the letter with shaky hands.

The letter is not what she expected, it's not menacing, and she relaxes slightly as she reads the serene words. The words paint a picture of a normal family meeting where nothing has gone awry.

" _ **Dear Hermione,**_

 _ **There's been a change of plans, I can't make it for our meeting this afternoon."**_

She rolls her eyes, as if she actually wanted to talk to him let alone meet him under any circumstance.

The letter continues:

 _ **"I ran into Ernie MacMillan. We're having a late lunch at Luigi's Italian Restaurant, a few blocks from the Ministry. He's running a new venture with Gringotts bank to reform some of the wages given to elfs who visit the bank, so that their earnings are not automatically seized by their masters. It's a revolutionary idea, just think, they could open their own accounts. Would you care to join us here, instead? I know you could add much to the discussion and help this reformation be a success.**_

 _ **We could have lunch and then discuss family business after Ernie leaves.**_

 _ **PS. I know how much you like Italian food, my son has told me.**_

 _ **L.M."**_

The elegant calligraphy of the letter betrays no turmoil or hint of anything gone awry.

Briefly she wonders if she imagined the whole thing, that nothing wrong happened between her and Draco last night...that it was, in fact, him.

 _Not...not.._

Hermione groans. Oh good Merlin. He's toying with me again.

Of course, getting the truth out of Lucius Malfoy would be like trying to give a lion a rabies shot without being bitten or demolished.

Furthermore, Lucius Malfoy knows dangling possible charity work and elf rights in front of her is like dangling a worm in front of a fish. No matter what she's feeling personally, no matter how broken she is: she can't let go of the bait or a chance for another millionaire to donate some of their wealth to a charitable cause.

"Maybe I should go and confront the bastard."

He can't hide the truth forever. Though maybe she could kill him after his confession and donation.

 _"The bastard,"_ she grits aloud to no one in particular. Several muggles give her shifty looks. She's going mad, it's official.

She turns on her heel and walks, on foot, rather than disapparating, the few blocks it is to the trendy, expensive side of London where Luigi's and a bunch of other high class restaurants are. She's feeling distinctly underdressed in her wool sweater and jeans and messy long hair as she passes through the entrance and a woman in a red dress and red lipstick comes out chaperoned by a man in a tuxedo. She must look like a mad woman.

Hermione ignores the condescending look the snooty woman gives her. But then she dodges into the washroom to smooth down her hair and then she stops, takes out a lip gloss from her pocket, and dabs it on her lips so she doesn't look like a complete mess when Lucius sees her. Somehow she can't confront Lucius Malfoy looking like he'd already won; that her spirit had already been beaten down and humiliated in the worst possible way. Vengeance had to be served cold after all, perhaps she should pretend to know nothing til she could stab him in the back rightfully later. Perhaps she should pretend she doesn't have a clue it was him last night.

As she steps back into the restaurant, she feels his eyes on her as she treads towards a back table. Her mouth goes dry and her thighs shake with each step.  
Yet she shows nothing of her fears.

It's made easier when, as promised, Ernie MacMillan sits beside him at the table. She relaxes by the tiniest degree.

She smiles tightly at Lucius Malfoy while staring daggers through him. She wouldn't have agreed to this lunch without a third party involved.

"Hermione, what are you doing here?" Ernie asks and she's startled as she looks into the familiar yet much older face of Ernie.

"Lucius, _my father in law,_ " she coughs. "Invited me. He seems to think you have the right idea about reforming Gringotts and I'd like to help if I could. I do work for the Department of Magical Animals, after all."

"She's brilliant," Lucius says in his artificial business voice without a touch of irony or trace of mockery. "Trust me, you could do well to listen to her."

"I know, I only went to school with her!" Ernie says cheekily. "She was easily the brightest student in all our classes, from all grades and higher! I expected you to go into a lawfirm like me."

While doing her best to ignore Lucius, Hermione finds herself blushing at Ernies compliment. Ernie is much more gallant and nice to her than he had been a student.

"No, my interests lay elsewhere. Lobbying."

"Right," Ernie says and smiles.

The two gentleman both sit down again as she sits down at the table.

Lucius is dressed as immaculately as ever in dark black robes in wool with sterling buttons. Ernie is dressed more casually in a wizard-style business suit.

Ernie meets her eye and grins. "I'd heard you got married to Draco, congratulations."

"It's been two years." Her voice gives no hint of the turmoil Draco and her are going through right now.

In a way, her ability to lie and hide her emotions like this to keep face...are almost what truly makes her a Malfoy family member. She truly has become embedded in this toxic atmosphere.

"I would never have guessed that match, you two hated each other's guts in school."

"Things can change," Hermione says cryptically.

Lucius reaches out and pats her on the shoulder. "She's been a great addition to our family."

Her body shakes from his touch and she wants to shrink away, but, it takes every ounce of bravery and self-control, to decides not to make a scene or make Ernie uncomfortable by bringing him into their mess.

Lucius calls for the waitress and orders a bottle of wine.

The waitress is dressed in a short black cocktail dress and flirts unforgivably with Lucius.

It makes Hermione's skin crawl. Especially how the muggle waitress bats her long, fake eyelashes at Lucius and has a phony, sweet high pitched voice like Betty Boop.

She is relieved when the Betty Boop look-alike leaves. Lucius gives Hermione a side glance once the waitress is gone. "Remarkably shameful," he drawls, "How some women can have no self-respect."

Hermione burns with anger at this backhanded comment. She doesn't know whether Lucius is implying herself or the waitress, but she swallows down the bile in her throat. Yet if Ernie weren't here, she'd rip Lucius a new one for daring to comment on any type of shameful behaviour. The only one who should be ashamed of himself is Lucius. Not any woman who was unfortunate enough to be subjected to him.

"Let's just discuss business," she says, choosing to ignore his comment. "Ernie what did you have in mind?"

She stares across and pays attention only to Ernie for the rest of the meeting, while ignoring Lucius.

Ernie grins amiably and begins to tell her all the ideas he has for Gringotts and how he's going to help change the magical institution, then others, so it falls more in line with the modern wizarding world.

Hermione nods her head and adds her own comments and ideas. She suggests this could be a joint Ministry of Magic and independent enterprise to enforce the changes. The goblins, of course, Ernie is surprised but elated to hear she is on the same page with her. Lucius gives her more than a few compliments of praise.

"Please, gentleman, could you excuse me for a second?" Hermione gets up to go the ladies room once they are more than half way through.

She bumps into Betty Boop the bimbo waitress on the way to the bathroom.

She is shocked when she hears the young woman's distinctly high-pitched whiny voice begin to talk to another waitress about Mr. Malfoy and the huge tips he always leaves the girls here.

Hermione doesn't know why but it makes her cheeks blush and even angrier at Lucius.

~o~

.

.


	7. Chapter 7

a/n: Please review, it would mean the world to me.

* * *

 _ **~o~**_  
 _ **Father in Law Issues:**_  
 _ **Part 7**_  
 _ **~o~**_

.

Hermione quickly moves into one of the stalls and gently clicks the door behind her. She really has to go to the washroom but for this moment she can't stop eavesdropping at what she hears the Betty Boop waitress saying to the other waitress.

"Oh yes," the voice pauses to erupt into a tinkering laugh, "I've seen it, it's HUGE."

Hermione's eyes widen. Oh my god...Did this mean? She can hear her heartbeat bursting in her ears as she continues listening.

"Ha ha," the other waitress laughs in a throaty, conspiring tone. "You don't have to tell me. I've heard the stories. A different young woman on his arm practically every month. He wines and dines them. And somehow when he ends things, they have no complaints! They're still mesmerized."

Betty Boop's voice speaks again. "Yeah, well, I have no complaints here, he leaves me huge tips and he's helping me pay for my apartment."

"How'd you get him to do that?"

The girl laughs. "Easy. I just asked. He said it was no problem and gave me a few cheques."

"You slag!"

"Am not."

"What luv...Is he your sugar daddy then?"

"Nah, he's just the type of bloke that has a lot of money is all and if you ask 'em for help, he'll help you." Betty Boop laughs. "I would've slept with him just the same, in fact, I didn't ask for any help til the third week. I asked for a designer bag first."

"Oh, yeah, because your month is almost up, you know he's about to move on! Good for you girl. Was the bag expensive?"

"Just a few thousand. I will miss that cock though."

They both laugh and then the laughter dies down as the two women finally leave the washroom.

Hermione is still stood transfixed in the stall. She realizes she hasn't even used the washroom yet.

Shakily, pulls down her jeans and she sits down on the seat.

 _Oh my god._

She can't believe what she's just heard. Did she hear right?

Or rather why is she shocked?

She shouldn't be. Fucking hell.

This is exactly the type of scummy thing she should've expected all along from a scumbag, racist scumbag, like Lucius Malfoy. Using women like that. The cheating bastard and with Muggle women. it makes her stomach churn the way they talked about him like he was some kind of great catch and not a total bastard...just because he had a big... _god dammit!_

 _The fucking hypocrite. The racist hypocrite._

With Muggle women. He probably might even be manipulating them with potions or memory charms.

Perhaps finding this out is a good thing. Finally, she has something to blackmail Lucius back with, she would have her father-in-law back in the palm of her hands. He wouldn't be able to manipulate her anymore. She gulps guiltily. Well, she'd be the one now manipulating him. But merlin knows he deserves it. Poor Narcissa, the cheating bastard and with muggles! To think, the bloody hypocrisy. The wizard acted like muggles were beneath him and the scum of the earth, yet there he was regularly sleeping and using these muggle women like disposable play objects. Who cares if he gave them lavish gifts? He was still using them, all the same. She might even be able to use this against him if she found he was breaking muggle-wizard consent laws.

She is almost overwhelmed with the information, as well as sickened with herself for ever lusting over such a scum bag. Draco is so much better and yet there she was, acting the same as other gullible Muggle women, lusting after the bastard. Lucius probably saw her as another disposable muggle plaything. He was probably disappointed in his son marrying a muggle instead of just fucking and dumping them like his old man did.

 _The hypocritical bastard._

Hermione's cheeks are red as she walks back to their table.

Lucius's eyes meet hers as she walks towards the table and her heart both sinks at the same time that her stomach churns. How can her damn stomach even still dare to lust after this incredible bastard.

She notices then that Ernie Macmillan is gone. She does not dare sit down at the table. She doesn't ever want to sit at the same table with him again, Draco or not, his father was a bastard.

"Where is Ernie?" she asks Lucius aggressively, trying really hard not to look at him again. Because she swears she could punch the bastard out and make a scene. And she really doesn't want to make a scene, or giving bystanders the benefit of a family drama. No, she would crush Lucius behind closed doors, within his own family, making sure Narcissa knew everything.

"I don't know. He had to leave early," Lucius says in his usual smooth cadence as if nothing in the world could trouble him at all. Probably true too. When you had as much money as Lucius Malfoy, you could probably buy away your troubles. He smiles at her and Hermione wants to smack him. "Why don't you sit down, we still have much to discuss?"

"Oh, I'm sure we do." Why does Hermione get the feeling he always intended for Ernie to leave so that they could be alone?

"Elf rights wasn't it?"

"Yes, somehow, I don't think you actually care about that."

"What reason would you have for saying that?" Lucius says, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin.

"I don't know. Maybe your whole treatment of elves. Like Dobby."

"Sit down, and we'll discuss it," he says curtly now, losing his temper slightly.

"No, thanks, Lucius, I better get going," Hermione says viciously and grabs her sweater off the chair. "Can't stay."

"Now hold on a minute, where are you going?" Lucius stands up at the same time as she does. "Is something bothering you?"

She is pissed off as Lucius follows her out of the restaurant and Betty Boop tries to follow after Lucius to talk with him but he ignores her and then they both are in the street as she tries to outrun him. She just needs to get off the crowded muggle street to be able to apparate.

"Hermione, wait, I thought we were going to have a civil discussion―didn't my letter make clear―"

"About what exactly?! What on earth would we have to talk about?" Hermione finally says as she swings around to face him. She never hates Lucius as much as she hates him in this moment. The manipulative, two-faced bastard. As if they would have anything remotely in common: a blood-cold pureblood who hates elves and a muggleborn who loves them.

She stares at him in shock as his icy, grey eyes meet hers. She is so angry now that they are the same as Draco's. She hopes to god that Draco is never like his father in more ways than one.

"What do you want from me?" She breaks down, starting to feel her eyes water.

"You're not feeling well, Hermione, let me escort you home."

"No! Stay away from me."

"Why do you treat me with such revile and horror? What have I done?"

Hermione laughs. Oh the fucking hypocrisy of this man. "Oh yeah, I don't know Lucius, it could be any number of things. How about you trying to break Draco and I up? Or how about the muggle women you like to screw behind your wife's back? How about that?"

"Oh that." Lucius smirks as there is something funny. "You must've overheard Cynthia. I think you misunderstood things―"

Cynthia so that was the name of the tart waitress.

"No, I heard clearly. Don't try to fool me."

"You don't understand, if you would let me explain―"

"You fucking bastard."

"Language, please."

"The cheek of you, to correct my language when you are the one doing these things to your wife and to your family! The family you claim to love so much. What was the family business you supposedly wanted to discuss with me? Really? Because I'd REALLY like to discuss this with Narcissa! And Draco! I can't believe you act so perfect to Draco, he still looks up to you! He got angry at me last night over your honour, when really you have no honour, not even the slightest!"

"You don't know the slightest bit what you're talking about, you're making a fool of yourself."

"Oh I don't? Seems pretty clear cut."

"Clearly, you don't, and I'd hate to see you suffer under a delusion, especially as you are a part of my family now. Let us get off the street and I will explain everything." He grabs her by the arm and she knows he is going to try apparate them. He walks her down like a misbehaving child towards the nearest alley where they can apparate out of sight from muggles. The whole walk towards the alley she struggles against him.

"Let go of me!" She roughly tries to remove his grip from her arm but his strength is impossible and she can't get away. "I'm going to tell Draco everything! He's going to see you as you really are and he's going to hate you."

Lucius tightens his grip on her arm so much that it hurts. She can't reach her wand in her pocket to fight him off and it frightens her what the older wizard might try to do. She's pissed him off majorly.

Lucius suddenly pushes her gently against the wall of the alley and his eyes examine her closely. She gulps.

"Do you really want to tell Draco everything?" he says and it sounds like a warning. "Forgive me, but how do you know he will _only_ hate _me_?" His eyes insinuatingly run over her body.

She falls mute for a second wondering what he is implying and in the next second he says the words to apparate them both. "Malfoy Manor."

Again she tries to escape out of his grip but it is too late, they disappear with a loud pop.

~o~

They arrive with a slight crash in one of the rooms in the West Wing of the Manor. Lucius lands on his feet, gracefully, like a cat. But Hermione falls tumbling to the ground with the same momentum she was trying to get away from Lucius with before they apparated. She swears again, not caring if Mr. Malfoy's dainty ears are offended.

"You know you should never try to fight while apparating, you could lose an arm," Lucius says boredly as he flicks his wand at the door of the padded, elegant room to lock it shut. There is a mantlepiece with a fireplace, a few paintings, a sofa, an armchair and a large mahogany desk. There is nothing else in this room. Hermione recognizes it as his personal study.

"Yes and whose fault might that be, seeing as you practically abducted me?" Hermione shot back. She feels her arm where it hurts a bit from trying to get away while Lucius was apparating.

"You were making a scene, and you're a Malfoy now, I couldn't allow it." Lucius raises an elegant eyebrow distastefully. "Would you like a drink?"

"No, Lucius, I would like to get the hell out of here."

"There's no point in struggling, I won't detain much of your time. I need you to calm down a little, Granger, so we can speak as adults."

"Do you really think you can stop me from telling Draco? Or Narcissa? I'm going to tell them. Gladly," she adds with a vindictive smile. She loves that his perfect façade of fake respectability is finally being torn apart and the scummy surface underneath is going to be seen by his whole family. "I'll be glad when Draco finally sees you for the man you are and not some kind of perfect idol!"

Lucius smirks at her and gestures towards a chair. "Why don't you sit down and allow me to explain my so-called indiscretion. Hmm?" he purrs and waits for her to sit down before speaking. "I think you will find I have an explanation."

Hermione scoffs. "An explanation? For your multiple affairs? Why I'm sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for it, like maybe you accidentally tripped and fell cock first into these women." She blushes at her own choice words, even more so when she remembers Betty Boop's comments on his notorious, philandering member.

"Language, Hermione. It offends me when a lady speaks like a common fishmonger, it's indelicate."

"You're one to talk."

"Pray, didn't you and Draco have a domestic dispute the other night?"

"It's none of your business!" She hates how he saw her in her nightgown, a red smack on her face, after Draco were arguing, obviously because of him.

Lucius takes a sip of his glass of firewhiskey and his eyes burn into hers. "I don't think your personal life is as perfect as you would have it seem, Miss Granger."

"Mrs. Malfoy," she corrects him.

"Mrs. Draco Malfoy, then if you will, your own personal life is not as perfect as you make it seem. We all have our secrets. But very well, we will discuss my own affairs, since we are family now and I think you are getting wholly the wrong impression of me."

"Oh please do tell," Hermione mocks his fancy choice of language. "I love being part of this family and all its dirty secrets."

Lucius simpers and then pauses. "Yes, well, you may not know it, and Draco doesn't either, but for the sake of staying together, Narcissa and I have long had an open relationship."

Hermione jaw drops. "Excuse me?"

"Yes, Cissa and I long ago maturely realized our appetites―which are considerable―for other and new lovers was not merely going to go away. We had needs we couldn't satisfy in each other. As long as we stayed together for Draco and kept our affairs out of the tabloids, we were doing what's best for the family name. Why do you think your mother-in-law is in France right now?" He laughs and takes a swig of his drink. "I personally choose muggles for affairs because they don't know who I am and how important I am in the wizarding world, so no scandal comes of it. Same with why Narcissa goes abroad, European, for her affairs...though she did have an Argentinian tango dancer lover once."

No.

 _No. No. No._

The explanation can't be that simple.

No bloody way is Lucius Malfoy actually going to get away scot-free from what he's done. She has him, she has him cornered.

Hermione, she, should have the upper hand.

He's not just going to wave his hands, say a few words, and get away with everything just like he did in the war.

"Why don't we discuss something else?" Lucius drawls, obviously pleased at making his actions all seem normal.

"No," Hermione says stubbornly. "I refuse to believe that. This is too convenient, just like your war excuses."

"What part don't you believe?" He licks his bottom lip. "Perhaps I could explain further, if it would help elucidate―"

"I don't need you to elucidate anything, Lucius. I'm simply not believing your lies."

"They're not lies." He stands up and retrieves a letter from his desk. "You are free to write to Narcissa anytime or ask her in person, she will tell you the same things I am telling you." He hands her a letter in what appears to be Narcissa's handwriting, telling her husband about her daily on goings in France and some man named Francisco.

"I don't believe it," Hermione repeats, perhaps more to herself. She drops the letter back on the desk. But it has to be. Why would this letter and the many others already be on his desk?

"You're in shock. You come from a muggle background and perhaps you are not used to these pureblood ways, I doubt your parents―"

"Of course, my parents didn't―don't―" _They're dentists,_ she thought, _who wear matching sweaters at Christmas; hardly glamourous, they aren't the type to._

"Of course, not," Lucius says for her.

"No, they're not!"

She realizes she has fallen mute and doesn't know what to say next. She thought she would be grilling him and he would be apologizing.

What else can she say? Lucius Malfoy may be a philandering, racist, hypocritical bastard...but his wife allows it and what say did his daughter-in-law have to chastise him for it, if his wife accepted it?

It was really none of her business, he was right.

Irritated, she watches as Lucius walks in a circle around her, still clutching his glass of whiskey and looking inestimably smug and pleased with himself. As per usual.

Fucking Malfoys: always getting the upperhand one way or another. She tries to recollect the extreme anger and betrayal she felt a mere 10 minutes ago.

But it's no use. Her extreme reaction has already dissipated. She doesn't feel angry enough to scream at him again.

She still feels hatred, her usual hatred of Lucius Malfoy...that always goes from hot to cold then hot again when he does another thing to tick her off her moral compass.

And disgust. She feels a new disgust for him. Using muggle women, and half his age. And spoiling them with gifts so they don't feel angry when he leaves. He's like some racist sugar daddy.

She shivers reflexively and Lucius seems to catch her sudden spasm.

"Are you feeling alright?"

Her eyes dart towards him. She is beguiled by his eyes again. Though she hates him. "If you are so unashamed and laissez-faire with your lifestyle, why don't you tell Draco?"

Lucius pauses to sit down next to her on the couch and looks much too comfortable. "Did your parents tell you everything growing up?"

She stares down at his hand that is dangerously close to her thighs. She closes her legs and shifts to the side of the couch.

"That doesn't change the question. Why not tell Draco?"

"Draco has always been a bit volatile and self-centered. He doesn't understand things."

"Yes and I suppose you understand things?" Hermione asks sarcastically.

"Perhaps more than you imagine, my daughter. I understand things, perhaps even you."

His hand shifts to her thigh.

She inhales sharply, all at once feeling dizzy and confused and so overwhelmed.

"Get your hand off me," she breathes. Hating how quiet and shaky her voice sounds. She sounds weak, like he could make love to her and she would allow it, wouldn't even scream or fight him off.

She stands up ready to leave. "Unlock this door," she demands. "I don't want to see you again, and I don't want to come here again."

Lucius lowers his eyes and then grimaces almost sympathetically. "I know why my presence makes you uncomfortable. In fact, I know what it is that bothers you. I can feel your discomfort, your distrust, your...resistance...radiating off you."

"You know nothing."

She takes out her wand and grips it tightly in her hand. She is almost shaking, her legs feel so weak. Why does she feel so dizzy and triggered?

"Open the door," she warns him. She is one more trigger away from attacking her own father-in-law, perhaps even hurting him with a spell.

Lucius moves towards the door and unlocks it. He holds the door open for her, a mocking expression on his smug face. Clearly, he is enjoying how disoriented she is.

"Narcissa and I weren't too different from where Draco and you now stand when we were first married."

His words are like little stab wounds to her heart.

She hates that there might be some tiny truth in that. Even more because of her own downfall, rather than Draco's. Draco was better than her. Draco was stronger even if he battled his own addictions. He had succeeded in overcoming his past and he could do it again. They could all be fine, their marriage strong and intact as before.

"Draco and I will never become like you, like Narcissa," she says unsteadily, without full conviction.

"Oh do you detest Narcissa as well? I thought you liked her."

"No, not as half as much as I feel sorry for her."

"Don't be, Narcissa has no regrets. She's had an extremely indulgent and interesting life. Not sure I would say the same for the famous, goody-two shoes of the Golden Trio." His eyes pierce right through her and its dangerous how closely he can read her body language, probably right from the beginning when Draco first introduced his girlfriend to his father. She's so fucking vulnerable before this older wizard that it's almost a joke that she ever thought she could have control over him or blackmail him for even a second.

"Go to hell."

She dashes out of his study and to the nearest fireplace where she throws in handful of Floo powder. She doesn't dare look behind her before she disappears.

Once in her apartment, she goes straight to the fridge and grabs a bucket of ice out of the freezer.

Then mixes herself a drink of ice cubs and vodka on the rocks. She never drinks but she feels her forehead right now and it is blazing like she has a fever, like she's scorched.

The drink burns her throat.

What is going on in her head? What is going on in her heart? She, Hermione Granger Malfoy, has never felt so totally out of control and like the rug has been pulled out from under her.

Who was she as a person anymore? What were her values?

The Malfoy family was like an insidious snake that wrapped itself around every aspect of her life. No wonder Draco was so confused and conflicted as a teenager, growing up with a father like that.

 _Merlin, I need to talk to Draco, I don't care what Lucius says about keeping hush-hush about his affairs. I need to get some straight answers,_ she thinks.

She throws her empty glass at the sink, watching it shatter.

The broken pieces are clear, like water drops.

Her mind clouds over as she thinks of Draco's hands and mouth all over her body last night. What had come over him? Was Draco like his father? Were thoughts of another woman making Draco act different and make love differently to her? What if that had been Draco, not Lucius? Where did he learn his different tricks in the bedroom? Why did he act so different? Or was it the addiction again warping who Draco was as it grabbed hold of him again?

Yet more importantly...Where did Draco learn his different tricks in the bedroom? She hadn't thought he was so experienced. But then she did really know everything her husband got up to, if she didn't even know how many times he lied to her about being sober when he was cheating on that...Why had he disappeared in the night and then acted like he didn't know what she was talking about?

A fear struck in her. Would Draco come forward one day, after a talk with his twisted dad, and ask for them to have the same open lifestyle? Did all the pureblood elites indulge in such things like Eyes Wide Shut? Was there any escape from the depravity?

Merlin, if she knew half of what she knew now, she would've told Draco just to keep his family away from her.

~o~

.

.

.

 _ **a/n: please review and share your thoughts, thanks!**_

 _ **Is Lucius bullshitting Hermione about having an open relationship with Narcissa, or is this actually the truth? Is Lucius intentionally trying to make Hermione, and then Draco, adopt the same lifestyle or is he implying something else that he wants? Should Hermione talk to Narcissa?**_

 _ **Do you think Hermione overhearing Cynthia the waitress talk about Lucius was an accident or on purpose to make her jealous? Who was trying to make her jealous, Lucius or Cynthia? Who is after whom?**_

 _ **Was Draco himself last night when he made mad love to Hermione, or was it something, or perhaps someone, else?**_

 _ **Let me know your thoughts in the box below :)**_

 _ **BTW Eyes Wide Shut is an amazing, twisted, dark film, i highly recommend it if you like this story**_

 _ **~o~**_


	8. Chapter 8

a/n: Please review, it would mean the world to me.

* * *

 _ **~O~**_

 _ **Father in Law Issues:**_

 _ **Part 8  
**_

 _ **~o~**_

* * *

 ** _...Narcissa and I have an open relationship..._**

 ** _...I've seen it, it's HUGE._**

 ** _...We long ago realized our appetites for other lovers was not merely going to go away..._**

 ** _...Just a few thousand. I will miss that cock though..._**

 ** _...You're in shock...You come from a muggle background and perhaps you are not used to these pureblood ways..._**

 ** _...I know why my presence makes you uncomfortable...I can feel your discomfort...your resistance...radiating off you._**

 ** _...Narcissa and I weren't too different from where Draco and you now stand when we were first married..._**

 ** _...My wife has no regrets... Not sure I would say the same for the famous, goody-two shoes of the Golden Trio._**

Don't fight it.

 ** _Narcissa and I weren't too different from where Draco and you now stand when we were first married._**

 ** _Narcissa and I weren't too different from where Draco and you now stand when we were first married._**

 ** _Narcissa and I weren't too different from where Draco and you now stand when we were first married._**

No that's not true.

.

Lucius's cruel words replay over and over in her head.

Hermione turns over in her bed and attempts to go to sleep but it is of no use.

Try as she may to block out the memory of his voice—so rich with innuendo and implication—the louder Lucius's voice becomes in her head.

She can't forget everything she has willingly, or unwillingly, uncovered about the Malfoy family.

They say people can't handle the truth.

Well, maybe she can handle the truth. Except what Lucius has told her isn't the truth at all.

She's still holding out a semblance of hope that it may all have been a bluff so she didn't go dish the dirt to Narcissa and Draco.

She won't know for sure until tomorrow when she finally gets a hold of one of them to ask. Which could prove to be a bad idea.

She doesn't really want to tell Draco, in case her husband truly doesn't already know what his father gets up to. It would probably be a safer bet to confront Narcissa first. Somehow she feels certain Narcissa will tell her the unvarnished truth...or whether she's been the victim of more of her husband's lies. So perhaps she should go to Narcissa first.

Either way, truth or not, Hermione know she's getting way too involved in this. She needs to distance herself.

Really distance herself from both Draco's family and his father. She only married into this family, she didn't agree to be privy to all its deranged practices.

Merlin who wouldn't be overwhelmed at being caught in the middle of this twisted family dynamic. She's only playing a game of power and lust with her own father-in-law. Fuck. This is so fucked up. Why did she have to get involved with this? Why didn't she flat out refuse to see Lucius Malfoy yesterday?

She keeps hearing Lucius Malfoy's cruel words.

"Narcissa and I weren't too different from where Draco and you now stand when we were first married...I understand you more than you know."

This is the implication keeping her up right now. That, whatever else was truth or false, Lucius may have just said some truth in those words.

It struck a nerve. The picture Lucius painted of her and Draco being more like the rest of the Malfoys than they cared to admit.

It can't be true...can it? Lucius can't have read her like an open book and seen things that even she didn't see.

Draco and her can't be anything like Lucius and Narcissa...can they?

They aren't like them. Draco and her respect each other, they are committed to this relationship. Hell, they've only been married a couple years so far. They're still in love...They haven't even had kids yet. They aren't torn apart. They are very much together. Why would Lucius assume their relationship is so doomed to repeat the same pattern?

But then why is she alone in bed right now?

Why hasn't she spoken to Draco for the past day?

Why didn't she forgive him?

 _Merlin, what's become of us? I know you at least meant your apology, Draco. Instead I was stupid and daft enough to spend the afternoon with your bloody dad. Now I regret the whole thing._

She grimaces as she thinks of how the last person who could ever apologize sincerely for anything is Lucius Malfoy. That wizard would lie through his teeth before ever losing an ounce of face. At least Draco has a sincere side to him that his father lacked.

Her hands lower to rest on her breasts, which feel swollen. Her nipples still sore from where Draco was unusually rough as he suckled and bit at her that other night. Draco had been so mad at her without saying it in words, he had been so rough with her, bending her over the sofa.

 _We need to work harder on this marriage. We can't be torn apart by his father, whether by accident or Lucius is doing it on purpose...I can't let Lucius divide me from Draco._

She rubs at her forehead where sweat has made her hair stick to her skin, her lips dry, her throat parched. Finally, she throws off the silky bed sheets and gets up to go to the kitchen. There is no way she is going to get any sleep tonight unaided. She needs a potion to ease her mind.

She only wishes Draco were here so they could curl up together. She always can fall asleep easily when Draco is there, especially after making love.

Whatever her issues with her husband, they can work through it. Their marriage isn't perfect but who's marriage in the history of mankind was ever perfect? Perfect is the enemy of progress, Mrs. Weasley once told her. Mrs. Weasley has been married long enough that Hermione takes her words into deep consideration.

 _We have to work through this._

With that motivating thought to calm her and knowing she will be reunited with Draco tommorow, Hermione grabs a bottle of Deep Sleep potion and pads back into her bed. She knows the instant she takes the sweet-tasting potion she will lose consciousness and finally have some undisturbed rest for the next sevent to eight hours. She won't be able to wake up til then, even if a earthquake shook her.

It is of little comfort then as she closes her eyes, and before completely losing consciousness, that she remembers HIS words again: _'Perhaps more than you imagine, I understand you,'_ and she remembers his hot hand on her thigh.

But then she's out like a light.

.

 _Draco and her are in a bookstore. Flourishes and Botts, her favourite. The rustic, antique interiors of the medieval store are her comfort zone._

 _Draco fingers one of the titles on the shelves._

 _"Bathsheba...Have you heard that story?"_

 _Hermione turns to look at her husband, giving him a quizzical look._

 _"No. Why?"_

 _She grabs the book from his hand to look at the cover. She is shocked to see a graphically naked woman in a body of water as two men ascend over her._

 _"What is this?"_

 _"I thought you would know."_

 _"No."_

 _"Now there's a surprise, something you don't know." Draco smiles and his icy grey eyes bore into her. "It is the story of a beautiful woman who bathes in front of a king...She costs her husband his life when the king covets to take her from him by sending her husband to die in battle."_

 _"That's horrible."_

 _"I know. You shouldn't meddle with kings."_

 _They put the book back and walk away arm in arm through the bookstore and for some reason as she turns to leave the bookstore a hen is sleeping on one of the shelves. It makes no sense._

 _._

 _._  
 _Their whole apartment is dark with wind blowing in and out of it like the walls are made of sticks rather than bricks and mortar. Draco is shouting at her._

 _"I told you to stay away from my father."_

 _"Draco, I never wanted this. Didn't I tell you-"_

 _"Didn't you tell me what?! That you wanted to cheat on me with my own father?"_

 _He strikes her._

 _"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WOULD DO THIS!"_

 _Before he strikes her again, her whole body turns to glass and the floor, a tiled marble, disappears underneath them._

 _._  
 _._

 _She doesn't know why but she is standing in the middle of a forest, by the shore of a great lake._

 _The water is so cool and clear that she is tempted by its gentle waves to take a swim._

 _Glancing over her shoulder at the forest, she decides to give into her innocent desire for a swim._

 _She looks once more over her shoulder, making certain that she is alone, before lifting her cotton dress off and leaving it on the ground._

 _Next, she slips off her underwear and bra, leaving them behind on the shore, so that she stands completely bare._

 _Naked and free she walks towards the water before she is clothed by its depths._

 _The water is crystal clear and as delicious as she imagined._

 _She swims ever deeper into the centre of the lake, frolicking and swimming, until she returns to the shore._

 _Her hands are wringing the water from her hair, as she stands near the land, her ankles still immersed in a few inches of water. When she hears his voice._

 _His grey cool eyes pierce right through her and she jolts as she sees Lucius standing there holding out her clothing._

 _"The emperor's clothing," he says and twists her dress between his hands._

 _Her breathing quickens. Was this an ambush? "What are you doing here?" Did he follow her?_

 _"I caught you."_

 _He takes a step forward as she takes two steps backwards back into the water, so that it laps at her knees._

 _"More like you've spied on me, how dare you!" Her eyes dart wildly around them but there in no one else in the forest or along the shore to help her._

 _Lucius laughs pitilessly. "Narcissa and I long ago realized our appetites for other lovers was not merely going to go away...I wonder," the blonde pauses and stares at her beseechingly in her naked form. His eyes drape over every inch of her exposed flesh before settling on her breasts. "When will you realize your own appetites, Hermione?"_

 _"What do you know of my appetites?" she counters, grabbing her dress from him yet their fingertips touch and she jolts away from him._

 _"I know that you are lying to yourself."_

 _The dress falls into the water in that moment of distraction._

 _"No," she reaches out to try to catch her clothing but it is quickly swept away by the current into the lake._

 _Lucius grabs her arm before she can jump back into the deeper end._

 _"There's no use in struggling."_

 _"Stay away." She attempts to cover her breasts and lower half with her hands._

 _But her whole body is crying out for his touch._

 _He comes closer into the water, wading fully clothed towards her. Finally, he is fully in front of her, towering around two feet taller than her as he_ _stares down at her and reaches out a hand to touch her hair._

 _What begins as a simple gesture turns into him wrapping and coiling her hair like a rope around his fist. He is getting a hold of her like a harness around_ _a horse. With his fist around her hair, Lucius roughly pulls her naked body towards him._

 _She throws her head back as she falls across his chest completely exposed and he runs his other hand down her hip and then cups her buttocks. She closes her eyes._

 _When she opens them, Lucius is still staring at her. Quiet and solemn as a lion, with his long blonde mane, unwilling to let her out of his sight._

 _She is his prey._

 _She realizes that now: she's the prey and the predator in this little game._

 _She waded into these waters. This was his trap. He put the temptation there, so that she would come naked to him, revealing herself to his eyes. Revealing her hidden self to him willingly. She undressed herself, she swam in the water willingly ...he had only to collect by catching her in the act._

 _He touches her nipple, flicking and tugging it with his large hand. "You are mine."_

 _She gasps. Yet it is half-way a groan and she bites her tongue. Hating the sound she has made to betray herself._

 _"I wonder what you're thinking, why you struggle against me when you know I'm the only one who can please you," he cooes softly as if she is an animal he has finally caught._

 _"I don't even know myself," she says honestly. Because there is no lying to him now. She stands before him utterly naked in all ways. Devoid of any defenses. She is naked, truly naked, in front of him in all ways. Physically laid out, body and soul._

 _His hand finally releases her hair and let's her go. He examines her lips._

 _"I think I do."_

 _"I wonder how that's possible. When even Draco doesn't understand me."_

 _"He doesn't understand you because he can't handle you the way I can."_

 _"It was you, wasn't it?" Her eyes begin to fill with tears. "What have you done to me?!"_

 _His cruel reply is spoken with a sneer. "Nothing you didn't ask for."_

 _It occurs to her what is going to happen and she pleads one last time. "You should let me go. Please."_

 _"No. I've caught you, fair and square."_

 _He walks towards her and just as he makes to kiss her, he pushes her down beneath the water._

 _She is completely submerged under the water as she begins to scream for air._

 _._

Hermione wakes up and throws up.

She runs to the bathroom and continues dry heaving.

She hasn't even eaten anything for many hours but she is throwing up...what seems to be water.

 _._

.

* * *

A/N: Just to clarify everything in italics was a dream sequence. The next chapter is back to reality and much longer chapter with some heated family drama. If Hermione is ready to forgive Draco for him slapping her, what will happen when Draco and Hermione reconcile together and try to make the marriage work...but other issues come up? Like who and what happened that night after the violence?


	9. Chapter 9

**a/n: The rewrite of this chapter is mostly the same but I added a few owls from Lucius to include more lumione scenes and tension building up...to show how Lucius takes over Hermione's life is going to be a lot more sophisticated and manipulative, completely unexpected I hope by the end. Stay tuned and as always, please review, it would mean the world to me. Your thoughts are critical and help shape this story and make any necessary changes and edits so its higher quality.**

* * *

 _ **~O~**_  
 _ **Father in Law Issues:**_

 _ **Part 9**_  
 _ **~o~**_

In the morning, Hermione hurries to work barely making it to the Ministry of Magic in busy downtown London on time.

As the muggle phonebooth sinks below the surface of the sidewalk and down the long tunnel into the underground building, the small brunette is feeling queasy with tension.

Her office feels claustrophobic with all the noise of busy-bodying and lobbying for Magical Animals and creatures. There's so much need in the world and its overwhelming her at times...especially because she so, so _wants_ to make a difference.

She's a bleeding heart, combined with her need to overachieve, it's a curse more than a blessing. There's always something to do, someone to help, there's never a moments rest. McGonagall told her lobbying would be nothing more than a headache and a waste of her talent. Hermione had replied, "Someone needs to do it, I don't see how that could be a waste of my talent." She'd been upset at the older woman's warning at the time, but she came to understand McGonagalls' concerns came from a good place.

Lobbying or doing any charitable work for animal rights genuinely is emotionally draining work. Dispiriting at times, because of all the ugly things she had to see on a daily basis, of more elves being abused or animals being slaughtered. Though as ugly and terrible as reality could be, anyways Hermione wouldn't want to do work, even easier or better paid, if she didn't feel it was worthwhile for a good cause. _Now that would be a waste of her talent_. If she supported the status quo and had a nice cushy job pushing papers around and holding up the status-quo, instead of tearing it down legally...for real change.

Perhaps she was too idealistic.

The Department could use more funding. She hates that Lucius attempted to bribe her favour by dangling the possibility of him working with Gringotts to help house-elves. _How ridiculous. Lucius care for house-elves._ More like a fairy-tale to have a wealthy father figure come in and take care of everything with the weight of his money. No, that's exactly what was wrong with the current Ministry of Magic and its laws: too many fat cats like Lucius had already bribed and altered the structure irreparably in the past...every law interwoven with corporations and corruption. Sometimes she wished the whole house of cards fell down...with Lucius crushed beneath with it.

~o~

She tries not to think anymore of Lucius as she goes about her day.

Though it becomes increasingly impossible when she receives several owls from the Malfoy patriarch to her office.

She ignores the first owl. She made it quite clear yesterday she had no desire to speak to him.

When the second and third owl letters arrive, however, it's increasingly hard for her to resist the urge to read one of the letters.

Are they all the same letters, or does each letter say something different?

Could Lucius possibly have anything important to say or was it more bullshitting on his part? Probably worried about her blabbing to his family. She shouldn't give in.

When a fourth owl arrives, looking irritable at being sent back and forth, Hermione finally takes mercy, perhaps just for the sake of the Malfoy owl being tired out, and takes the letter from its weary beak this time.

 _"Merlin, fine Lucius, I will read your stupid letters. Then I plan to burn them."_

Perhaps she could even find a way to block the Malfoy owls in the future.

She stares at the pile of four letters on her desk and decides to open the last letter which arrived just a minute ago.

It reads in simple calligraphy:

 _ **"Don't be a fool. Take it. -L.M."**_

What the Merlin is Lucius referring to her taking? Her face reddens and she scrambles to open the rest of the letters to make sense of his cryptic message.

The second letter, which was actually the first owl to arrive, is the most surprising. Her jaw drops.

The letter says nothing on the envelope or inside it. No note. There is only thing contained in the elegant white envelope: a cheque for a hefty 10,000 galleons for the Elf Abuse Foundation.

"Oh good god."

This is a small fortune. No, not even a small fortune, 10,000 galleons is equivalent to an entire life's fortune for some wizards! Good grief.

Suddenly her face turns very red and indignant. Did Lucius seriously think he could buy her silence? Or get her to stop asking questions about him with a bribe?

She is so disgusted right now she is tempted to tear the cheque up. She really hates that Lucius sent this cheque.

But then she remembers the faces of the abused house-elves she sees everyday in her reports and she can't bring herself to tear the cheque up.

This money could help so many house-elves.

 _"Don't be a fool, take it,_ " she can't help but imagining Lucius smugly saying behind her shoulder as she wonders whether to keep the cheque or not.

Not sure she can decide right now, she shakily places the cheque in her desk drawer and locks it.

The next letter is just as surprisingly: a single key in an envelope, without explanation.

She examines the old skeleton key and suddenly she is transported out of her office as she realizes belatedly it is a portkey.

"God damn it, Lucius. Of course, you had to give me a portkey without telling me its one!" she yelps as she is transported with a brain aching squeeze and twist of her guts. The man is a trickster disguised as a diplomat.

A second later, she is throwing up from motion sickness in what appears to be a wine country estate with green fields and a distant mansion on the horizon.

She can't be in Britain, it's much too sunny here. Yet the plants aren't tropical or foreign, so she's probably just on the continent.

For some reason, she expects Lucius Malfoy to jump up behind her, as if he lured her here on purpose, yet she is completely alone.

She only stay a moment longer to stare at the perfect serene greenness of the fields before she squeezes the Portkey to return back to London.

As soon as she is back sitting at her desk, she furiously opens the last letter from Malfoy Manor which she hadn't opened.

Of course, this explains everything. The letter read in Lucius's perfect calligraphy:

 **"Dear Hermione,** **I wish to apologize again for the other night and to set everything right. As you must realize by now, family means everything to me."** Hermione pauses to roll her eyes. She wonders if Lucius ever gets tired of his own bullshit? **"Though I was taken aback by your lofty and misguided accusations the other day after our meeting, I realize now the only way to set things right is for you to speak to your mother-in-law hence forth. I have therefore provided a portkey to Villeneuve, our estate in France...I know you would find your way there, with or without my assistance. So take it as a token of my affection that I entertain your suspicions and save you this much trouble of you digging around in my business and asking questions that do not pertain to you.**

 **P.S. You're welcome"**

 **-LM."**

Okay that is enough. Hermione immediately takes out her own quill and begins to write staunchly in response.

 **"Dear Lucius,"** she writes ironically mocking his own letter. **"I have received all your letters now. Thank you for not informing me one was a portkey, I had a delightful time throwing up in France, so yes 'you're welcome' was due. By the way, I'm onto you. You're not going to hide any of your shady business any longer from Narcissa or Draco. They will see you as a see you, for the liar and exploiter you are."**

She sent the letter and immediately was rewarded with his rebuttal about ten minutes later.

 **"If you had read my letters in sequential order, you would've known that was, in fact, a portkey. -LM. PS. You speak out of complete ignorance. Don't make accusations you can't back up."**

 **"How presumptuous of you to assume I don't or wont have the evidence to back up my claims. I don't even know I bother reading your letters. How am I supposed to know or trust anything you send me by mail, you could be trying to send me anthrax. -HG**

 **P.S. Have I not maintained that I wish to have no further contact with you at the present time?"**

Hermione couldn't help smirking a bit. So they were both a bit cruel to each other. Yet each had reason to want to murder the other.

 **"I trust you will find your answers shortly in France. Until then I look forward to your apology. -LM.** **P.S. There is no way I'm letting you return the cheque. But when you do come to your senses and accept the money, I hope you will at that time also revoke your claim to no longer wanting to have any contact with me."**

Her cheeks burn again. How dare he act like she owes him anything, let alone her time.

 **"Don't assume I will change my mind anytime soon, or accept your charity. Not all of us can be swayed by idle trinkets or fools gold. My silence will not be bought, not at any price. -HG"**

 **"I know you are above those things. Which is why I so delight in sending them. -LM"**

She rejects any further letters from Lucius Malfoy but thankfully he sends none further.

However, every time she thinks of that last letter, she can't help but blush. Perhaps she has been too harsh on him.

But then she reminds herself of everything Lucius Malfoy has done in the past two wars, let alone his mistreatment of Dobby...and she feels fortified against falling into his lies or charming empty words. _No, Lucius, you will not reel me back in like this, I plan to expose you for the unreformed bigot you've always been. You cannot buy my silence._

Money could buy anything...Except integrity.

Which she has.

Lucius is delusional if he thinks once tiny ounce or a whole acre of his gold can change her opinion about him. She'd rather eat dirt than ever have a civil word with him again.

Though she knows not all people, or women, are like her. Some can be bought. Like the muggle girls at the restaurant who spoke so happily of selling their soul, or rather body, to Lucius for a bit of cash and luxury goods.

She wonders if Lucius dangled money in front of Narcissa to make her agree to an open arrangement. Perhaps Lucius gave his wife the option of unlimited spending and freedom, versus monogamy. It was a soft sell perhaps for the French-blooded matriarch that loves shopping and travel.

She goes back to her work and attempts to focus...

The hours on the clock on the wall, however, cannot pass by more slowly and her stomach is turning knots of both hunger and discomfort. She feels both hungry and sick. Like she could eat a whole pumpkin pie and yet could barely hold down a bite.

She knows it partly nerves because she can't wait to be off from work so she can use the Portkey to see Narcissa and ask her some questions.

"Hermione, I need you to write up that Milhoove report,"

"Just a minute, I'm on it!" Hermione digs across her desk and gets a folder full of incidents showing abuse against house-elves. Each picture tells a different yet the same tragic story of a vulnerable victim. Briefly she wonders if being at the heart of such abuse issues all the time will eventually leave her numb to it one day. She hopes not. And then there's the issue of the cheque. She tries not to think of the enormous 10,000 Galleons and what it would do to help the victims. She hates Lucius for placing this Damocles sword over her head.

It's a tremendous relief when she gets off at lunchtime for a much needed break and makes her way to her favourite muggle cafe, which is a few blocks from the Ministry.

~o~


	10. Chapter 10

_A/n:Please review, it would mean the world to me, thanks_

* * *

 _ **~O~**_  
 _ **Father in Law Issues:**_

 _ **Part 10**_  
 _ **~o~**_

She doesn't have to wait long to see Draco.

Apparently he's been trying to send her owls all day. Which just screams bullshit to her because she hasn't received one owl from him in days, despite his father sending like a billion.

Yet as she steps out of the Ministry, Draco is there waiting for her, claiming that he's been trying to contact her. He's wearing a long black peacoat and his blonde short hair is tussled and unkempt while usually it is slicked back. There are dark circles under his eyes like he hasn't slept well...but he's still undeniably handsome. She is almost relieved to see him but she doesn't want to show it.

As she steps into the cafe, Draco follows in behind her and they both walk towards the same table. Hermione, reluctantly, stands for a moment before she'll sit down. Though she knows it's time. She can't keep running forever. They have so many issues to settle that she doesn't know where to begin or what to address. Like part of her has to ask herself: Do they even have an intact marriage anymore? But things haven't slid so far they are beyond recovery, she realizes now that she's calmer.

She can look her husband in the eye.

"How did you know I was here?" she says in a deliberately clipped tone, her arms crossed.

"I know my wife, don't I? You always come here."

"It's not fair to stalk me. Wife or not."

Draco scoffs. "I didn't stalk you. Not the stalking kind, girls usually did that to me, rather than the other way around. I just know your habits, you're kind of predictable darling."

Was that even true? Perhaps she would surprise him one day.

"Right," she says, feeling insulted.

"Listen I'm really sorry about the other day, if we could just... sit down...Talk?"

She tries to not look at him in the eye. She has so much to say...and at the same time, so much guilt and confusion she doesn't think she can genuinely discuss her thoughts or feelings with him. He'd be shocked and then the marriage might truly be over if she told Draco the full truth. Maybe it is stubborn pride, or not wanting to see Lucius win, but she can't let that happen. How can she let Draco go? How can she let go of what feels like the other half of her?

She stalls for time. "Can we order first? I haven't eaten."

Draco nods and he goes quickly to the counter already knowing exactly what she likes best.

When they have ordered lattes, and she is biting into a much needed sundried tomato sandwich, they resume the confrontation they have been delaying now for more than a day.

It's not going to be a heated discussion. Not only because she has no interest in making a public scene. But she isn't actually that angry at Draco. More than anything, Draco seems like he's still feeling guilty over slapping her the day before yesterday. Briefly she wonders if it would be a mercy or a cruelty to tell Draco the fantasies she's had about his father and just confess everything, so that Draco stops beating himself up. And maybe she could do the same: stop beating herself up for her fantasies. Fantasies didn't mean anything. Everyone occasionally had weird fantasies in their head. But then she thinks of that night after the fight when Draco and her had made love...and she knows that isn't completely true anymore. Fantasies can slip into reality. She had been playing with fire.

"Do you forgive me?" Draco asks again, breaking her stream of thoughts.

She presses her lips together but says nothing.

Draco's eyes searchingly seek hers. "I made a mistake, c'mon. We all make mistakes don't we? Except for you."

"What does that mean?"

Does Draco really think she's so flawless she never makes a wrong turn or wrong decision? Has he idealized her so much he can't see the flawed, confused human being across from him? She's practically been having a breakdown the past two days and he has to say some out-of-touch shit like that?

Draco raises his eyebrows at her skeptically. "Are you seriously going to turn a compliment into an insult? Quit twisting around my words."

"No, I'm just genuinely surprised you would think I'm not human." She takes a long sip of her drink, savouring the rich caffeine and sweet scent.

Draco isn't really listening to her. He never does see her flaws, does he?

"I know you," he insists.

"I don't know, you're so busy at your Wizarding Wall Street job, I forget sometimes you actually know me."

"Don't say that. Just because I don't want to rely on daddy's trust fund money doesn't make me some kind of bastard."

"I didn't say that."

"You were thinking it," Draco says. "You don't have to tell me you think I neglect you sometimes. I do try." He's leaning closer to her now, his lips near her ear.

"Can we please just talk about what's relevant here - I want to come back home. I miss you for fuck's sake."

She purses her lips. "I know." She adds sheepishly. "I miss you too."

"So? Why the Merlin didn't you answer my letters?" Draco demands. "I was worried."

"Your letters?" Hermione feels a strange tingle down her spine, like something has gone catastrophically wrong from some point a few days ago and she's just realizing the full extent of the damage. "I didn't receive a single one from you."

"I sent you like five."

"Draco, I didn't receive a single one from you in days," she says but she knows her husband isn't a liar and if Draco said he was sending her owls and trying to get in contact with her, he was sending them...but somebody stopped them or they didn't arrive for whatever reason. "How did you send them and from where?"

"Courier owl from both my work and from Malfoy Manor," Draco says. "You should've got them."

She feels a kick in the bottom of stomach. Like Lucius is having the last laugh at her again.

"Was your father there when you sent them?"

"Probably, I can't remember, honestly what does it matter?"

She can't tell Draco she thinks his father might've intercepted the letters. Draco would then ask why the hell his father would do that and why kind of game were the two playing that he was unaware of?

"Nevermind."

"Don't brush things off, father told me you met with him," Draco adds casually and crumbles a piece of pastry between his fingers, this time staring at her expectantly.

Her cheeks immediately burn. What the Merlin did Lucius tell his son about their meeting, what kind of game was Lucius playing with her?

She swallows back the lump in her throat and tries to sound normal, not like she is panicking and about to cry. "Oh. What did he say?"

"Only that you met him and resolved all your problems with each other."

"Oh he said that, did he?"

Hermione is crossed between wanting to curse Draco's dad and trying to hide her sense of guilt. She so badly wants to cuss out at his father but then they'll be right back to where they were on that Saturday night, with no progress made, if she starts attacking his dad again.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why are you still mad at me? I thought you were angry because you didn't want to spend anymore time with my family."

If only he knew that she had possibly spent more than an afternoon with his father. But then that is a whole other story and she wouldn't even know where to begin in telling Draco how crazy his father really is. And how could Draco forgive her either, even if she didn't know. Not that she knew for sure it was Lucius.

"Nevermind," she says numbly, realizing she has no choice but to play along with Lucius Malfoy's coverstory for now. "I changed my mind. I realized it's impossible to keep complete distance from either of our families..."

"Thank you."

She shifts her gaze downwards at her hands, knowing Draco is about to get mad at what she's about to say. "But that's not going to stop me from trying."

"What? Why?" Draco says immediately with real anguish on his face. His hand has gone to his hair and is tugging at the short strands again and its obvious why his hair is unkempt now. He's been worrying himself sick. Maybe this is driving him as mad as it is her. Maybe she shouldn't tell him the whole ordeal, it will make things worse for him. "Why are you saying this now? Didn't you just meet with my father?" Draco scrunches up his face, but he's only half-listening, and he ignores the true meaning of her words and glosses over what she's saying. "Hermione, I'm tired of us fighting. Let's settle this. Why can't you forgive me?"

"I'm trying to, I mean you don't even have anger issues normally, but there's a whole other story here!"

Draco again fails to pick up her gentle implication.

"I'm sorry, how many times do I have to say it? Do you want me to grovel and beg on my knees? Because I will." She knows Draco actually will and she grabs his hand to keep him from making a spectacle in her favourite café.

"Can you please lower your voice just a bit? I like this place and I'd like to keep coming back."

"I'm sorry," Draco hisses harshly under his breath. "I don't know what's tearing us apart!"

She stares at Draco uncertainly. He really doesn't get it, does he?

Would he even listen to her if she told him?

Does Draco really not know what a manipulative bastard his father is or does he genuinely think their little domestic dispute the other day had nothing at all to do with his father?

She wonders if it's even a good idea to burst his bubble if Draco's denial runs this deep.

She should probably talk to Narcissa first before saying anything to Draco. Maybe once she had his mother to corroborate on Lucius's double life, his affairs and his sexual exploitation of muggle women, perhaps using memory charms to subdue muggle women...then maybe Draco's image of his father would begin to crumble and he'd see his father for the racist, misogynist he is...and then it wouldn't be such a stretch to say that she, Hermione, his own daughter-in-law may have been exploited by him too.

But they are far from that point. At the moment, Draco still has his head buried in the sand and she doesn't have the facts yet either. So perhaps she can't cut off Lucius Malfoy completely from her life yet.

She takes a deep breath and frowns heavily, suddenly feeling much older than her twenty-some years. "Listen. I know you didn't mean that the other day, you snapped. You're not like this. But when I told you I want to distance myself from your family..." Her heart races and she wonders why she is going to say this. But she continues despite knowing better. "...well it was a mistake the way I worded it. Even if I still stand by it."

Draco's relief is tangible. "I'm sorry, I'm so incredibly sorry, Hermione I can't live without you."

She shrugs. This forgiveness is so half-hearted only Draco can feel relief. She doesn't feel any relief. Because none of the issues she's dealing with in his family have been addressed or dealt with. She's very much alone in dealing with those issues. Particularly her father-in-law issues but then because she's partly to blame for lusting over him at one time or unconsciously flirting with him, and Lucius adeptly picking up on those signals...well, she, can't tell Draco everything. It would spell the end of her marriage.

"I realize I should've given you more time if I have an issue with your father," she says vaguely, aware of her guilt and her deceptive omission of certain events. "I shouldn't have tried to make you choose on the spot like that."

She's never felt so guilty.

"Oh god Merlin, I'm so sorry, I know my father's a bit much and a Death Eater but he's not those things anymore, I just want the people I love, to get along together."

Their reunion feels bittersweet. She can't help feeling that they are on a doomed path no matter how many times they apologize to each other now.

"Thank you. Let's go home now." He adds with a chuckle. "I would choose you if you forced me too. I actually would choose you over my family." He leans in and kisses her lips.

"No, I'm not going to force you do that." She bites her bottom lip. "Though I'd rather we spend more time with my family, which is Harry and Ron namely."

"Harry? Ron?" Draco laughs. "They both hate me. All your friends do."

Hermione suppresses a sad smile. "Well, now you know how I felt walking into Malfoy Manor the first time."

Draco rolls his eyes. "Don't exaggerate. My family loves you."

Not really, she thinks. They tolerate her inferior blood and then try to mold her into whatever daughter-in-law they'd rather have, even if it means chipping away at her resolve like ice or pulling the carpet from under her.

But then Draco is draped all over her, hugging her and looking like he wants to cry. He's so sensitive, so needy at times, completely unlike his father. He's so loving and open hearted despite an austere, rather cold upbringing. She wonders if he had got that from Narcissa's side of the family, because he certainly did not get it from his bastard of a father.

She leans in to kiss Draco and savours this moment of peace. "I'm sorry."

"What do you have to be sorry about?"

Her whole body burns with humiliation and it takes everything in her to not scream out the truth to him.

"Nothing. I don't know." She twirls her fingers, not wanting to think about it. No she hasn't done anything wrong perhaps. It's not all denial and deception is it? Right now it feels like her homelife is repaired a bit and there is nothing better than being in Draco's arms again.

"I'll meet you back at five at home when you get off?" Draco whispers in her ear and then kisses at her.

She nods and he kisses her again, this time on the cheek, before he pays the bill for their much and leaves.

She admires the upbeat swing in his step as Draco leaves the café and waves at her. So unbroken, so self-assured...unlike herself.

It was probably for the best she didn't tell Draco anything about the weird things that have happened with Lucius. That night after the fight. The weird meeting where she found out a little too much about his parents marriage and his affairs. She doesn't want to see Draco upset or angry at his mother or her yet if she brings proof of what a sick bastard his father is.

She has to wait for that revenge: of seeing Draco come to hate his father.

 _I wont let you get the best of me or scare me off, Lucius_. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

She intended to find everything she could about Lucius, first by talking to Narcissa tomorrow morning, and then make sure Lucius never had the upperhand over her again if he tried to scare her or pressure her into anything. Then she might even come after him...

~o~

.

.

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	11. Chapter 11

a/n: Please review and thanks for reading.

* * *

 _ **~O~**_  
 _ **Father in Law Issues:**_

 _ **Part 11**_

 _ **~o~**_

Things go back to normal, or as normal as they can, after their talk at the cafe. Draco comes home and Hermione wonders why she thought she couldn't forgive him.

She still loves him. She loves him. And Merlin, Draco's made clear he still loves and adores her.

As soon as Draco is back in the flat with her, their hands cannot move fast enough to remove each others clothes. He grips her arse in his hands like its a pound of flesh that belongs to him and she cannot stop her own hands from running down along his front. His lips are like sweet nectar she can't stop licking.

"Why the Merlin did we ever fight?" Draco says in between rough kisses down her neck. "I'm so sorry."

"Your father. Doesn't matter anymore," Hermione pants as she slinks out of her clothes and throws her shirt onto the carpet.

"God, I've missed you so fucking much," Draco says as he tears off his tie then his shirt revealing his rippled, taut chest.

Briefly, she wonders if Lucius Malfoy's chest is as sculptured. Somehow she doubts it. Yet her cheeks burn at the thought. And she curses her own brain for even bringing up that disturbing mental image in her mind. She needs to stop thinking about Lucius. The bastard.

She needs only Draco.

She quickly jumps onto Draco's waist to straddle him and her husband obediently lowers himself into a chair.

They makeout with heavy tongue action for a few minutes further and Draco is so gentle and his sweet, loving self, no dirty talk...that she shudders. How could she have missed something so obvious?

Draco continues to kiss her and gently play with her hair but she is no longer in it. Her motions become robotic.

With every touch of Draco, she is reminded with fresh slashes of guilt how rough and commanding _Draco_ had been that one night...that one night he had been completely unlike himself...two nights ago. The one night Draco seemed to have no recollection of himself, unless he took a potion or drank himself into a stupor to forget.

She tries to shake it off however. Maybe that night was a one-off. The memory of it would come back to Draco. Maybe she just had to remind him.

It couldn't have been his father after all, or anyone else who had made love to her that night.

But she stops and removes herself shakily from Draco's lap.

"What is it?" Draco murmurs. His dilated pupils stare at her in apprehension. He's sensing something is off with her.

"Nothing." She shakes her head, trying to hold back tears. She's hoping against hope...and why does a traitorous part of her almost feel a pulse of excitement in this calamity?

With tingles, she is reminded of how he deep throated her a few nights ago, right after their big fight.

"Hold on." She ties her hair back. "I want to try that thing we did before."

"What thing?"

"C'mon, Draco, you know?" Hermione attempts to smirk through her tears as she lowers herself onto her knees in front of him. Surely, he will remember. Draco knows. Why does he play with her? The soft fibers of the carpet feel like silk on her bare knees...Luckily, she enchanted their bedroom floor to be soft a long time ago. Just for such occasions when they happened. Not that it happened often. This usually wasn't their thing.

"Oh." Draco's grin is even wider than hers. "I see. Naughty girl."

He's rock hard as she unzips him and teases him a bit with her tongue.

Draco's usually grey eyes are dark, almost black, as his pupils dilate. He's so hard and lengthy.

She smirks to herself as she teases him again with her tongue and watches his head throw back.

"Papa is happy?" she uses his nickname from that night, hoping to remind him, so his memories will be refreshed by that, if not by her tongue.

"Merlin yes."

Draco groans and his knuckles are white as he attempts to control himself as she takes him deeper and deeper.

Yet he doesn't do the same thing he did the other night where he grabbed a hold of her hair and pushed her back and forth roughly.

He's not acting the same at all but she desperately continues hoping he will grab her hair or say something like he had before.

When he is almost near completion, she stops and switches to her hand.

"I liked that," Draco bites out huskily and kisses her thankfully on the forehead. "Where did you learn that?"

Hermione feels the bottom drop out of her stomach.

"What do you mean? You taught me."

But Draco's face scrunches up in genuine confusion. "I taught you? No. That never happened."

Her heart start to speed up in her chest. "The other night, Draco. Don't you remember? You came home after our fight."

Draco's face is starting to look as pale as she feels right now. "No, I swear, Hermione. That never happened. I think I would remember."

Her heart is now pounding against her chest and it seems as if the room is swirling around her.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Hermione says.

"What's wrong?"

"Oh god. Fuck," she whispers, her hand over her mouth.

She gets up to go sit on their bed. Her legs are shaking she is not even sure she could walk right now without falling over. "It can't be..." It was him. It was her Lucius. It was never her husband she made love to that night. Of course, and she knew all along at the back of her mind, but now she can't even deny it. Oh god, god, god, fuck, fuck...does this count as rape? What kind of sick bastard would impersonate her husband using polyjuice? How could Lucius have done something so vile? Suddenly she is feeling completely violated in every way possible. Was it even Lucius, how can she be sure? Oh good grief, how can it not be Lucius, this has his essence all over it.

"Hermione what's wrong?"

Draco is onto her and he follows her back to the bed. His hands hold tightly onto both of her shoulders as his eyes meet hers.

"I can't, I can't..." she whispers.

 _I can't tell him,_ she realizes with a shock. _It will destroy everything._

Somehow Lucius has made her feel so guilty, so complicit, that she can't even word the truth to his son.

She breaks down and starts crying as he holds her and he swears again he doesn't know what she's upset about.

"I'm not lying, Hermione, what's wrong?" Draco's voice sounds so raw, as if he feels her pain, yet does not understood what is causing it.

 _She isn't going to correct him. She'll let him think she had a bad dream. That is all this is, perhaps._

She can't break Draco's heart right now.

"I know you are not lying."

And that's why she cries even harder.

"Oh god."

Draco grabs her by the shoulders. "Hermione tell me what is it? What did I do wrong? I'm sorry I hit you that day, I wouldn't do it again. Merlin, you don't have to be afraid of me."

She looks at his beautiful grey eyes and she shudders because they are so much like his father's.

"I can't tell you."

Draco tries again and again to get her to open up, but she remains as closed as a clam at the bottom of the ocean.

She thinks of her dream of Lucius where he tried to drown her. Is she drowning now?

Draco keeps talking at her but her mind starts to shut down and she nods blankly.

Draco seems to think she's crying over the time he slapped her. Oh yes a part of her is still mad at him. But it's been eclipsed by something far greater and more fearful. But she's not going to correct him. At least Draco could take some solace in things not being as complicated for him yet.

"I don't know what came over me. Merlin, I've tried explaining this so many times, those letters had really good apologies in them...and fuck now I can't even find the words. I wish you had read my letters, they were really long and well written." Draco swears at himself.

"I wish I had read them too," she says simply with sadness now. Instead of Lucius's manipulative letters.

She has no doubt Lucius Malfoy is the one that subterfuged Draco's letters from reaching her.

She closes her fist tightly, holding herself together by sheer anger.

Anger, only anger, does she have now. And the determination to find more answers so she can nail Lucius's sorry evil behind.

~o~

The next day, after a sleepless night, she tells her boss she's not feeling well, which is the truth, and gets the day off. She doesn't tell Draco this but still heads outside the door. She won't be going home either. No solace will she find there. She needs some answers.

Instead she takes out the portkey that Lucius had sent her at her office the other day. The one she accidentally enabled and had sent her colliding with the French countryside.

Only this time, she plans to go up to the house she saw on the hill.

 ** _688 Villeneuve Isle, Provence, France._**

Hermione double checks Narcissa's address in France on an old letter so she isn't walking into any trap. She knew Lucius well enough by now to know anything could be a trap coming from him.

But she trusts the Portkey to take her to the correct location after double checking with her wand that is where it would take her. Perhaps she is being unduly mistrustful, but she will not trust Lucius ever again, not one word, or one gesture from that man.

Taking out the portkey-which is an old bronze skeleton key shaped like a fleur-de-lys- she squeezes the handle of the key and again is swept up in a mind and stomach turning warp of energy.

It's a short and swift trip before she is standing on the green fields and surrounded by vineyards she saw earlier. This time she walks up the path leading to the old, respectable looking house with many spiraling staircases and towers which she assumes must be Narcissa's house here. It is typical of Malfoy extravagance, and as she nears the mansion, she is soon greeted by a French maid dressed in a black pinafore.

"Hello, are we expecting you?" the young woman asks in a thick French accent.

"No. I'm Hermione Malfoy," she says rather self-importantly so she doesn't come across as an intruder. "I need to talk with Narcissa."

"Ah I see! Une momente, mademoiselle."

"Thank you."

She waits for the girl to come back and twirls her thumbs nervously. She hasn't called on the older woman unannounced before or even visited her in France before. So the elder Mrs. Malfoy should know something is up before they even talk.

Elder Mrs. Malfoy. Ironic, Hermione thinks as she finally spots Narcissa Malfoy walk gracefully towards her in a long white cotton dress. Coming closer, the woman looks absolutely beautiful and stunningly ageless even close up her skin is flawless and youthful. Narcissa's personal beauty is so blinding that she puts even women in their 20s to shame.

"Hermione!"

"I'm sorry to come here without telling you..." She kepts an eye out for the supposed lover of Narcissa, 'Francisco' or whatever his name was, if he might be in the background or yard somewhere. She wonders if he is a young Frenchman or old or it is all just lies of Lucius. Narcissa doesn't seem worried or like she is hiding anything...so far.

"No, don't apologize. This is good. I always worry that we aren't close enough!"

Yes, well, they didn't have much in common. Especially considering her mudblood had once bled upon the Manor's fine antique floors as he deranged sister Bella had tortured her.

"Mad things happened during the war, but family always stands," Narcissa laughs frivolously as if she hasn't a care in the world. "Come in." She loops arms with Hermione and brings her into the immaculate French country estate. "Are you hungry? You look thin."

"No..Yes. I've been feeling sick, but no I haven't eaten." She didn't intend to make this a long visit but for the blaze of her, she is inexplicably hungry. "Maybe just a bite."

"Oh I'm sorry but it's all good, you're here now and I'll make sure you are well fed. We have the best cheeses in the world here. And we have several new gardens growing here on the estate and the salad greens and fruits are just luscious!"

Several platters of French cheese, bread, fruits and a green salad are brought out along with wine and fresh lemonade.

Hermione soon finds herself eating more than she should and enjoying chatting to Narcissa about random small talk instead of what she initially came here to speak of.

"Have more. You haven't tried the asparagus? It's gorgeous."

"No, I'm fine thank you."

She puts down her glass and feels almost bad to break this nice evening with Narcissa to say something so dark.

"Actually, I came here to ask you something."

Narcissa smirks. "Doesn't surprise me, you never came to visit me before. I always see you at the Manor but I know you are just there for Draco."

"I'm sorry, I don't want to seem rude."

"Not at all. I'm at total peace in Provence, you may ask me anything without rebuttal," Narcissa waves her hand in the air, the rings of immeasurable jewels sparkling on her fingers like fairy dust.

Hermione focuses very hard on Narcissa's beautiful blue eyes and tries to word this as best she can without injuring her.

"It's about your husband."

She can't tell Narcissa the whole truth, about how it involves her now too, but she isn't going to cover anything Lucius did with other women.

But Narcissa immediately seems to know what Hermione is going to say before she even says it.

"There is nothing," the blonde says with an elegant drawl. "You can say about my husband that would or could surprise me."

"Really?" It's almost a dare. She wonders if Narcissa is serious. "Nothing?"

"I know Lucius like the back of my hand. How you may wonder? Lucius is my exact mirror image in male form. It's why our marriage works so well."

 _Really bitch? Like do you even care?_ Hermione thinks to herself. _Your husband says your marriage works because it's an open marriage. But what if I told you your husband may have raping women too? Or tricked his own daughter in law to sleeping with him?  
_

But she can't say that now. Narcissa is too nice, and she doens't know for 100% sure it was Lucius that night who used polyjuice. She respects Narcissa too much to go tearing things apart with absolute surety behind her actions.

"Well...I don't want to interfere in things that ought not to concern me," Hermione says carefully. "But I did see and hear Lucius be involved in something, well, rather compromising. I felt it was only right to tell you first."

"That is very good of you Hermione, thoughtful and kind. Thank you for being concerned for me. But I think I know what you may have seen or heard about my husband...or let's say his affairs he gets up to in England while I'm gone..and there's nothing I don't know."

"You don't?...So you actually...have...a...marriage that's..?"

"Happy? Yes!" Narcissa winks. "Why don't you meet my gardener, Roberto, he's Italian? He does amazing bush work!"

The blonde beauty calls over for a man and a moment later Hermione is bombarded by a bit too much information when a shirtless, but undeniably handsome young man with dark hair comes over to the table. He greets her but his eyes are almost completely mesmerized by Narcissa and its quite clear to even a blindman that there is something going on between them.

So. Yup. That was that. Perhaps no other questions were necessary.

Hermione takes another sip of her wine glass.

"Does that answer your question?" Narcissa asks with a holier-than-thou smirk.

So Lucius wasn't lying after all. How surprising. She was sure Lucius had been pulling the rug under her.

"I think so. I'm sorry I worried you, I'd probably better get going."

Narcissa kisses her on the cheek. "You worry too much, puppet. It isn't good for you. Are you sure you are feeling well?" Her eyes drag uncomfortably over Hermione.

Hermione clears her throat. "I'm fine."

"You should take it easy. Visit me here anytime you want to relax," she presses Hermione's hands. "You're family now."

Yes, don't I know it, Hermione thinks. "Thank you for the invitation and the cheese and wine was lovely Narcissa. Thank you."

Narcissa taps her small perfect nose. "Don't tell Draco about this, okay? He likes to think of his parents as statues, perfect and unmoving without any needs or flaws."

"But you're not really like that?" Hermione follows the blonde's trail of thoughts.

Narcissa turns her own words around. "Are you? Draco has a habit of idealizing those he loves." Narcissa continues. "Who can live up to such expectations? Such a lofty fall. I have a heart and I love Draco but there is somethings he doesn't understand about us." Narcissa narrows her eyes. "Be careful of what you tell Draco, he's more delicate than either of us."

Hermione wonders if this is a warning as much as advice, but she nods along. "I understand. I may not agree, but I will respect your wishes, Narcissa."

Narcissa waves her off as she walks back towards her French estate and Hermione turns to leave beyond the gate by portkey.

How strange.

Was Narcissa really more concerned about Draco than her husband?

Why would that be?

~o~

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	12. Chapter 12

_**~o~**_

 _ **Father in Law Issues**_

 _ **Part 12: Illusions**_

 _ **~o~**_

A whole week passes without mention or intervention of his father. A whole blissful week.

Hermione feels her life is almost going back to normal. _Almost._ Though they are still tensions, Draco and her are working through them. Mostly by keeping an emotional distance.

There is residual anger there, on both sides, but mostly on hers...and that's mostly directed at his father.

Yet the relationship is salvageable. More than salvageable—it's vital, alive, swimmingly so. They are close again, physically, and superficially, if nothing else. They hold hands. Draco makes her laugh. He buys her gifts. They make love every night, sometimes twice a day or three times when Draco is feeling particularly ravenous. Draco goes down on her and he worships her body, makes her feel like a goddess at the center of his universe, as a husband should worship his wife's body.

Everything is back to normal.

Except for one thing.

One important vital thing.

The fact that everything seems _normal._

The Malfoy family is not normal, anything but normal.

 _"This is the calm before the storm, isn't it?"_ Hermione thinks to herself. She doesn't trust herself or gut instinct to believe that this is the end of the whole matter or drama in the Malfoy family, of which she is well entrenched part.

There's no way her father-in-law is simply going to bow out gracefully from their lives, or from her mind. There has to be some ulterior motive in this timing of his absence...is he deliberately trying to give them space? Is he giving Hermione the space and distance she actually asked of him? But why would Lucius Malfoy comply with one of her requests? Merlin forbid, Lucius doing something out of concern or empathy for her.

Lucius Malfoy has never been so generous as to do something for someone else that does not benefit himself.

There is no way. The Malfoy family's very definition of charity meant giving and gaining something in return.

Which leaves her with the troubling question that torments her every night as she lays beside Draco: _what is the something that Lucius is gaining?_

This is what disturbs her.

She can make love to Draco a million times.

She can tell herself she has the perfect life a million times.

She can tell herself her marriage is normal a million times.

She can almost fall asleep at night without worrying about Lucius Malfoy and what his magnetic force will eventually do to destroy her life.

...But she doesn't trust anything until she can answer that single question.

 _What is Lucius gaining by his absence?_

Why did he leave the country and give her and Draco the distance she asked for? Without a word or further struggle, why would he have just given into her wishes? For the sake of the family? Somehow she doesn't believe it. Out of charity for her? Now that is laughable.

It can't be charity. It can't be sympathy. It can't even be love for his son or for the sake of his family. All of those are illusions, much like his marriage to Narcissa.

Her distrust is the hesitance behind why she still hasn't officially accepted his sizeable donation. The donation sits untouched in the envelope, locked in her desk where she first left it. If she didn't love house elves so much, she would already have burned the cheque and the potential of all the house-elves it could save. She doesn't trust Lucius one bit.

Draco brushes off the whole thing and her questions, saying his father went to France to be with his mother, and that they should both be happy for them. "It pains me when they're apart for so long," Draco has said many times. "I'm so glad he's finally come to his senses and spending more time with my mother." And many times Hermione has to resist the urge to burst Draco's delusions by saying being apart is probably the only thing holding his parents marriage together.

Being distant is probably the only thing holding their _own_ marriage together. How ironic. You fall in love with someone, marry them, and then in enough years time, the only way you can fall in love again is by living a lie. In so far as that, Lucius may have had a point, marriage requires some lies to be upheld. But she refuses to uphold any of Lucius's lies.

"I don't believe for one second your father in in France."

"Why do you act so suspiciously? Where else would my father be?"

She sighs. "I can't imagine Draco." Which is what worries her more. What is he up to.

Personally, she knows Lucius is anywhere except at his wife's side in France.

She doesn't dare verify it by using the Portkey to Villeneuve, France again.

Somehow she doesn't want to see that she's right.

Lucius is not there.

~O~

Or maybe perhaps, just maybe, she was worried for nothing.

Of course maybe Lucius simply went to reunite with Narcissa in France like his letters claim.

Maybe perhaps he put the family first, for once, instead of his ego.

Just maybe.

~o~

Yet when another week passes by with no word or intervention from Lucius, two weeks of absence. With only a letter or two to Draco and none addressed to her, she takes a long exhalation of the breath she's been holding. She can breath freely again if only for a few days.

She settles back into normal life, if morbidly, deliberately ignoring the shadow even his absence throws over her life.

"Is everything okay with you?" Ginny asks. She's wearing glittering dress with matching copper earrings that go well with her rusty red hair. Hermione is more simply dressed in a red silk blouse with work pants that she still had on from the Ministry earlier.

It's Ginny's birthday and they've both come to Harry's house. Draco, begrudgingly, accompanied her to her best friends house. Though she can see how much it pains her husband to be the sole Slytherin among a sea of red and gold alumni. Yet Draco made at least enough effort to help her choose out a lovely gift for Ginny (and by extension Harry): front row tickets to the next International Quidditch match in Rome. The tickets were worth a steep fortune.

"Yeah, could be better, but Draco and I are happy."

"His family aren't giving you any more trouble?"

Hermione pauses to think before she thinks, trying to go over her memories. "When did I say that? When did I mention family issues to you?" She hasn't told Ginny anything lately, not since they were closer as roommates in Hogwarts and shared all their secrets.

"I'm sorry." Ginny shakes her head, her red locks shimmering as she takes a sip at her flute of champagne. "Harry must've told me. I didn't mean to, Merlin forbid, I know it's not my business..."

"No, it's fine." So she can't divulge in secrets anymore with Harry without Ginny finding out anymore it seems. Though it is a sign of a healthy marriage that neither spouse keeps what's on their mind off the others...if you are to believe conventional truth about what makes a marriage happy. Lies can hide much.

"What the bastard did was wrong, Hermione," Ginny says. "If you don't mind me saying. Because I know there's no way it would be your fault. It's inexcusable!"

"I know Ginny, I know. Draco and I have gone over it many times, it wont happen again. He's sorry. It was a one off incident," Hermione trails over, her own mind tired of going over and over this one incident. Draco and her have discussed a million times, she has expressed her anger a million times...and yet they remain solidly together.

Ginny shakes her head. "Draco? No, I was talking about Lucius. What he accused you of."

Her throat tightens so much she could nearly choke.

 _"Lucius?"_ Hermione can't understand what Ginny is going on about. But her heartbeat starts to quicken so loudly she can hear it in her ears. "What are you talking about?"

"You didn't know?" Ginny suddenly swears. "Merlin sake Harry! Why does my husband think not telling you hurtful things is somehow going to protect you from them?"

"Excuse me? Protect me from what?"

Ginny shakes her head. "Hold on." They both glance at Harry who is awkwardly trying to make small talk with Draco. "Can you not get angry at Draco or Harry yet?" Ginny pleads. "It's so rare to see them getting along, can we let them have this moment? I really want them to be friends like we are, then you can come over all the time like you used to with Ron. I miss you."

Hermione nods dumbly. She doesn't even know what the whole new incident with Lucius is. But she's sure she's not going to like it one bit. Her stomach is already floored.

"Here." Ginny comes back with a folded piece of article. "It's from the Daily Prophet."

"Oh good lord," Hermione gasps as she lays eyes on the article. It _is_ even worse than she thought.

She's on the front page article. A trashy sleazy celebrity gossip article written by none other than her old foe Rita Skeeter.

"Don't worry," Ginny places her hand over hers as Hermione reads the headline in shock. Ginny pats at her back. "I know Lucius is a lying manipulative bastard. You don't have to tell me that twice, he almost killed me by giving me Tom's book when I was a kid. There is no way in hell I would believe him over you. Or Rita, I know what's she's like." Ginny pauses to emit a trill of laughter. "I mean, please, you with Harry? That Rita woman is mad."

Ginny's staunch support of her, and belief in her innocence, hardly lessons the blow however.

In alarm, Hermione quickly reads through the article and cringes several times, wondering how anyone could have the gall to fabricate such bold-face lies and then publish them to profit from other people's suffering and misery.

As she looks at the pictures,, which indeed show her with Lucius fighting, Hermione is so fucking embarrassed. She is so upset that for once she is happy that her parents are muggles and won't ever have to see or hear the awful lies about her. The only part of the article that remotely rings true is that describing the turmoil 'caused by the muggleborn' in the Malfoy family. Rita Skeeter does make it seem as if they are at war within the family, at each other's necks...which is all true in a sense. But not for the absurd reasons given in the story. That is not the full story or remotely the truth. No one could know the whole truth except her and Draco and Lucius. Or perhaps only her and Lucius.

...and they were certainly not fighting over something so absurd and patently false as the article claimed. Property grabs! Affairs! Strife in the Malfoy family over the 'troublesome muggleborn'. The blatant, undeniable racism of continually calling her the muggleborn, as if her blood status made her inherently evil. _"I'm going to ring Rita's neck."_

Unfortunately, as if to give proof of the veracity of this obviously fake story, someone, unbeknownst to them, had snapped a picture of Lucius, Ernie and her arguing at the table...of the Italian restaurant they had gone to together. They had even managed to take pictures of her argument with Lucius in the street outside the restaurant...and these pictures are the most damning because she really had been shouting at Lucius and him glaring back at her.

But...how?

How did anyone know they were there to take a picture? How did they know she'd be there? That there'd be something newsworthy to snap a picture of.

It doesn't make sense that paparazzi could find them there. The restaurant was muggle. They met there discreetly. Ernie McMillan had been there earlier. Hermione wasn't even expected to show up. She had shown up on a fluke.

Yet someone had deliberately taken a picture of them right when she'd been talking very passionately about house-elf rights...and when she looked passionate, she almost looked angry or in the midst of an argument or madly in love with Ernie whom she had talking to for most of the meeting.

"I've been set up," she thinks, her blood boiling.

The headline reads: ** _Lucius Malfoy Accuses His Daughter-in-Law, beloved war heroine Hermione Granger, of having an affair with Ernie McMillan._**

Fucking Lucius. He had to be behind this.

 ** _"Rita Skeeter Has the Inside Scoop on the Unfolding Malfoy Drama:_**

 ** _Lucius Malfoy happened to stumble upon and interrupt the illicit restaurant meeting of his daughter-in-law, Hermione Granger with none other than one of his lawyers Ernie MacMillan at an intimate gathering. Scandalized, the business man and renowned magnate, Lucius sat down at the table and demanded answers. "Why are you here? With him, not my son?" Mr. Malfoy is reported to have said. The esteemed socialite, though incredibly successful, is more than anything a caring father and it was heartbreaking for him to see his sole son and heir cuckholded by a brazen lawyer! His son, with an estimated inheritance of millions upon millions of galleons, has fallen victim to a cunning, manipulative social climber, nee Granger, who used his son's affections to her own benefit while keeping a plethora of side lovers, including Harry Potter himself! There is speculation the war heroine may be trying to seize assets, now made easier with the help of her lawyer friend, in the case of divorce. "She will walk away with millions if they divorce," an insider has said. "Lucius Malfoy is just doing everything he can in his power to hold his son's marriage together before it splits apart the family. He knew better than to trust or let in a muggleborn to his illustrious family, even a famous one. Yet here now the Malfoy's thousand year lineage may be put to an end..by mud! And the MacMillan family could be in danger next. This muggleborn has her eyes set on tarnishing all of the Sacred Twenty Eight families!"_**

"Don't get upset, sweetie," Ginny pleads, seeing the tears stream down her face. "We all love and know you. Harry has your back. He actually laughed and just tossed the article out. Ron has your back. Our whole family knows and has your back."

Hermione tries to wipe away her tears. "You don't understand. To everyone else in this stupid classicist society, I'm still _the muggleborn_ , you heard the article, I'm the one that's always going to be treated with suspicion and like an outsider even after all I've done." But she can't speak anymore, she's so upset.

This is the biggest crock of bullshit Rita Skeeter has ever written since she wrote that Harry and her were an item back in Fourth Year. She was dating Viktor Krum at the time for Merlin's sake. Harry, a skinny nerd at the time, was the last thing on her young adolescent mind at the time.

The racist undertone of the article replays in her mind. Lucius must've had a hand in this somehow. How else would they know she at that restaurant at that time? Who took the photographs of her? She hadn't even noticed anything.

 ** _"...a thousand year lineage ending in mud!"_**

 _ **"The cunning, manipulative social climber, nee Granger, who used his son's affections to her own benefit..."**_

She's seeing red and she feels like she's about to collapse.

 _Rita better pray I don't find her,_ Hermione whispers to herself. _She better pray I don't find her._

.

.

.

a/n: This last chapter and having an inaccurate tabloid article written about hermione was inspired by some of the tabloid stuff that happens to MM and the megxit drama. However, I have since changed my mind on Thomas Markle. He appears to be a good man, even if he has run his mouth to the paparrazzi. I believe MM is being ungrateful to cut him out like that when he raised her and never abandoned her. Btw, as one reviewer asked, there is no correlation whatsoever between this story and MM/royal family, only that both have tabloid articles written about them. But then that happens to every celebrity and these articles usually are inaccurate or misleading.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: I hate the number 13, so I don't want to have a chapter 13 in my story, sorry. Therefore, the new chapter is posted in chapter 14, so just skip ahead.

However, so I don't waste this space, here is an excerpt from my other Lucius/hermione short novel about a blind date from hell gone wrong:

* * *

"Why did you agree to go on a date with me? Blind or not, it seems implausible," she asked in an accusatory tone.

Lucius chuckled heartily, amused by her apparent mistrust. "It wasn't blind—on my end—I knew full well in advance. Fleur wanted to set us up for awhile."

She had a few choice words for Fleur later (like what the hell the blonde woman was thinking setting her up with Lucius). But she stymied her anger, to ask him more important questions so she could better get a grasp of the situation. Like if this were truly a blind date, or a ruse to humiliate her somehow.

"Tell me again, how do you know Fleur?"

"A second cousin of the Malfoys. We share the same French great grandmother. And you?"

"I dated Ron. Ron's brother Bill is married to Fleur. We didn't get along when I was still dating Ron, but afterwards we became fast friends. Fleur was the only one of the Weasley clan who took my side after the split."

"Yes, the Weasley boy." He chuckled. "Bill Weasley is not half bad a wizard. However, you would have been entirely wasted on the younger brother. Incidentally, why did you split, beyond the obvious reasons that he is no good for you?"

Hermione took another sip of the champagne. She watched the level of the cup carefully to know that she had drank less than one goblet this entire time.

"Ron and I had different priorities of what we wanted in life."

Lucius raised his brows. "That's putting it lightly. He's an oaf. I'm only glad you came to your senses in time to rectify the mistake."

"Rude," Hermione said. "What about you and Narcissa? No grand fairy tale there?"

"Would you believe me if I said we grew apart?"

"No," Hermione told him flatly. "You two seemed perfectly matched: both narcissists. How could you outgrow each other if either of you lack any self-awareness or personal growth?"

"Rude," Lucius said and took a sip of his own goblet. "But you're right, it would be a lie to say that. Yet it still lies within the territory of the truth."

"Ah the truth. Which is what exactly?" She raised her brows trying to look bored as possible. Though Lucius had, in fact, piqued her curiosity. She had no reason to expect Lucius to tell her the truth or confide in her why his marriage had failed. What relevance did the failure of his marriage have to do with her, let alone this date?

"You may judge for this, but don't jump to hasty conclusions." Lucius intertwined his hands together and leaned forward across the table to whisper intimately to her. "I developed a certain...predilection, you might say, for younger woman."

Hermione felt all the air deflate out of her. How could she have missed something so obvious? It was so tediously stereotypical and obvious now to her that she had missed all the signs, including the glaring one of him being seated across from her.

"Of course." She shook her head and fiddled with one of her chandelier earrings dangling from her ear. "Freudian. A stereotypical mid age crisis. And I suppose you think I should be flattered?"

"Not at all." Lucius practically hummed. "You see, I don't have a wide ranging interest. In fact, I had an interest in only three young women."

"How conservative." Hermione rolled her eyes. "Only three!"

"Yes, one was a flower girl, another a barista, and one muggle lawyer."

"Eclectic array there."

"Only by profession. Not by appearance."

"Oh?" Hermione pretended to be interested in his self-indulgent tale of his exploits. So far, however, she was finding his story less interesting and more just plain offensive...speaking of women as if they were only conquests and not people. Categorizing women by their age and appearance was the ultimate form of objectification...was there a better definition of misogyny?

"Well, I confess I did not notice the pattern immediately. I simply thought I had developed a taste for younger women. All of them were no older or much less than twenty nine." Lucius paused. "But then I quickly realized all of them had the exact same appearance."

"Hmm, interesting," Hermione said mockingly.

"Oh just wait til you hear. They had, all three, the same appearance or commonalities: voluminous brown hair, bad fashion taste, brown or hazel eyes and an insufferable need to always be right...especially that last one, the muggle lawyer."

"Oh god." Hermione squirmed in her seat; the palms of her hands starting to feel clammy. So _this_ is what this date was all about?

She knew what Lucius would say next. The insufferable prat had made his intentions clear, and it made her that much more furious at Fleur for allowing this blind date to ever happen.

"You know what I'm going to say next," Lucius echoed her thoughts. His eyes burned into hers boldly, gauging her reaction. "You're a smart girl, you've figured out why you are here tonight."

"Yes."

"They all looked like you." Lucius interlaced his fingers together as he lifted a clam off the seafood platter and sucked the slippery thing out with his adept tongue. Hermione flinched. "It wasn't that I had became interested in young woman generally, I had developed a predilection for you, _specifically._ "

 **~o~**

 **...To read more of this story, go to my profile and click on the story "The Blind Date from hell (formerly titled Gentlemen Prefer Brunettes)", I promise it's a fun read with lots of comedy and tension between Lucius and Hermione!**

 **~o~**


	14. Chapter 14

a/N: Sorry, the first 12 chapters of this story got a bit of a slight "makeover". No need to backtrack, all the scenes remain the same but I added slight additions to every chapter so now Hermione is aware that it was probably Lucius polyjuiced as Draco who made love to her that night after the fight she and Draco had. Also she has been dealing with some PTSD and a mixture of denial that she probably knew it was Lucius all along. Also I've thrown out the pregnancy plot altogether, I don't think she is pregnant, but that might become a possibility later, who knows. I'm not sure what will happen, Lucius always will try to get the upperhand however and Hermione will have to fight the darkness he is weaving around her life.

Thank you again for reading and this picks off where chapter 12 left off. I hate the number 13 so I decided to not write a chapter 13 lol.

Also stay tuned because Hermione is going to directly confront Lucius in chapter 15 so things will get shaky, dramatic...and possibly heated. She is going to use the portkey again and she's going to France again to find Lucius...but she may find more than she's looking for?

* * *

 **~o~**

 **Father in Law Issues:**

 **Part 14**

 **~o~**

* * *

~O~

As they leave the party, Draco chases after her and puts her coat over her shoulders.

She's so blinded by rage that she's not even aware of the millieu of people staring at her or the blare of the music as Harry and Ginny wave them goodbye. She wonders if everyone has secretly known about the article except her and Draco, and they are the last two to know. Meanwhile the whole world may have been speculating behind her back the whole time.

She is relieved as they breathe fresh air and quiet outside Harry's driveway, but then Draco stops her before they can apparate. He places a hand over her wrist and unfolds a piece of paper he had kept in his pocket.

She scans the paper and sees its the Daily prophet article. Oh good Merlin. So Draco knows now too.

"Do you want to tell me what this means?" Draco asks.

"How did you get the article?"

"Don't treat me like I'm stupid. I saw you and Ginny pouring over it in there. I snagged a hold of it before we left. She left it in a drawer in the hallway."

"Why are you even getting angry at me over this? You know it's not true."

Hermione glances warily at him. He doens't seem angry, in truth. yet there is something there in his eyes. Something she doesn't like. A further unsettling feeling between them.

"Of course it's not true," Draco says staunchly and even attempts to chuckle. "Actually made me laugh a bit, especially the part about you and Harry. Ernie is certainly a stretch. He's not even your type."

"Very funny." She does not share in his laughter. She'd sooner cry than laugh over Rita Skeeter's horrible article.

"I do find the humour in things, you should try it sometime so you stop taking everything so personally," Draco tells her.

"Can I just say that you might be upset too if some horrible rubbish article accused you of sleeping around on me?"

"Hermione, I believe you."

Draco holds her gaze, raising his brows over his grey eyes, to reassure her.

Yet there is ever ever so slightly the tiniest of doubts in his eyes: because really how can anyone know the truth for sure? Without proof or witness?

And this, this right here, is Lucius's intentions: plant the tiniest seeds of doubt in his son's mind about his wife's fidelity. let those seeds grow and let  
her own reputation be tarnished in the process.

She exhales loudly. "It doesn't even matter if you believe me, does it? The point is to tarnish my reputation and utterly humiliate me, which the article has achieved by its gruesome lies..." She swears under her breath at his father and she doesn't even care if it offends Draco anymore. If only he knew the full truth about Lucius.  
"I just know your father is behind this," she mutters.

"When has my father ever acused you of having an affair? C'mon Hermione, reign it in!" Draco now really does laugh heartily at her expense.

But he stops when he hears her insult his father, loudly now.

"The fucking bastard."

"Why are you insulting my father?"

"None of this is true!"

"I know it's not. My father himself told me to be warned they might write more tabloids about you someday when I married you. You are famous."

"Then why are you getting mad at me when you know it's untrue?"

"Can you not see the hypocrisy of your actions Hermione? You act so self-righteous and like the victim ever since that day. But the next bloody day after  
our fight over my father...there you were having a lunch meeting with him and his lawyer. I know Ernie. I know the story is a complete fabrication, but it is a fact you were there. Obviously you were having a row with my father and bystanders miscontrued the situation. It happens all the time and you know how the papparazzi are...You shouldn't have been rowing in public."

Hermiones shakes her head. "I swear...your father.."

"...had nothing to do with this," Draco finishes her sentence for her, as he raises his hand to grab her coat. "Let's go home."

~o~

She can't drop the subject when they're home either.

Maybe it's because the article gives her a reason to openly rage against Lucius Malfoy. And that is just the cherry on top of what's hidden below, the true cause of her rage and suffering: Lucius's violation of her and his assault of her that day in the apartment.

Either way it drives Draco up the wall.

He must sense something brewing underneath her constant need to swear at his father.

"Can we please change the subject?" Draco lifts his hand in the air and there's an unmistakably threatening energy about the gesture though he swore to never hit her again.

"What's the matter, Draco?" Her breath comes out in short little huffs. "Are you going to hit me again?"

She knows she's goading him. But perhaps that's on purpose too. If Draco really is that much a bastard, he'll hit her again, she wants to know sooner rather than later. She wants him to hit her now, so she can leave and not waste a further minute.

"No, I'm not." Draco shakily lowers his hand to his pocket. "But you've got to stop acting mad and insulting my father, he's not even here to defend himself. It's not fair."

"Do you think I'm hysteric? Well, maybe I have good reason to be going mad then I have reason to stay sane or stay here any longer."

Draco's hand twitches in his pocket. "What are you talking about. Everything is fine between us. It was all fine til Ginny showed you that fucking article, then you lost your head."

She laughs. Maybe this is where the danger lays in pretending. When you pretend everything is okay for too long, for two weeks, it can come to bite you in the arse when the facade fell again. Then you seem to lose it for no apparent reason and the people closest to you, assume you must've gone mad. As Draco has assumed. He can't see the connection between these placid two weeks and the night that happened 15 days ago.

But if Draco only knew the reason, if Draco knew the truth of what is happening to his wife, what would he do? Hermione wonders.

Certainly he'd be shocked and the marriage would inevitably be destroyed in the process but would he be on her side?

Would Draco be on her side if he knew what his father did to her?

This is the question that haunts her.

The answer is not clear cut. It's posible Draco, no matter how much he says he loves her and would choose Hermione over his family, he loves his father deeply. An almost blind love for his father, a reverance.

Could he really chose her over his father and family? Over his inheritance, possibly, too if push came to shove?

She's so terrified to think she'll line up all her ducks, have the proof of what Lucius did to her and then tell Draco, show him the proof...

...and then...then...nothing. It will come to naught. Draco will deny her truth and run, scurrying back to his father and the Manor and denial, perhaps drinking himself back into the stupor of submission.

She has no doubt if Draco even thought remotely there was a possibility his father slept with his wife...Draco's addiction to certain potions from the past would come back full blown. Draco would no longer be sober at any time and he could live in denial twenty four seven by suckling at the potions that nearly drove him to death after the war. That is before he met her and she helped Draco become sober and whole again. Something Draco had repaid her for by marrying her. But then his gratitude had ended there. Now Draco thought it's fine to hit her if he apologized after or let her suffer silently while his family crushed her underneath its invisible boots.

She asks finally as she meets his eye. "Why is it in the two weeks your dad is gone, this happens? That Rita Skeeter just happens to be ressurected, after nearly a decade, to target me again? How did she know I'd be there? Where your father just so happened to lure me?"

"Coincidence. You're starting to sound mad."

"Maybe because your father is driving me mad."

"My father has done nothing to you!"

"Has he?" Her words are bitter and hollow, barely above a whisper. Because she knows if she gives too many hints, she treads on dangerous territory. Because as much as she wants to scream at the top of her lungs: your father -possibly, or most certainly- used polyjuice to violate me and have rough, intrusive sex with me...She can't say it. She can't destroy her marriage and Draco's sobriety in one sentence. One sentence she can never take back.

And then there is the shame: the knowledge she'd enjoyed that night, even if she is traumatized now, even if she didn't know it was Lucius at the time, she had undoubtedly enjoyed the sex she had that night. The best sex, of possibly all her marriage, had been with another man pretending to be her husband. If that didn't fuck with her mind, she couldn't say what else could.

Draco can only stare at her as if she's lost her mind, however. He doesn't know.

"What has he done? Compliment you? Support you? Write a bloody check of thousands upon thousands of galleons to your workplace? Pull some strings with Ernie to help further the charities and elf rights you advocate for? He's a useful allie, Hermione. I think it's time you stop blaming him for the article, it's not his fault. He didn't know Rita would be there that night observing everything. How could he have seen her, she can turn into a bloody beetle can't she? Isn't that what you told me once?"

Hermione numbly bites at the inside of her cheeks until she draws blood. For her own sanity, she stops trying to argue with Draco. There's no use.

"Yes, sometimes things, or people, can be hidden in plain sight," she appears to agrees with Draco. But there is a double meaning to her words. She's thinking of the Polyjuice, the elementary trick, Lucius used to hide in plain sight and uncover every secret of her body. Touch every part of her body that should've been forbidden to the sly bastard. Taste her even where before only her husband had tasted her.

Draco relaxes and thinks she has let the matter go. Far from it.

She closes her eyes as she goes to bed that night and thinks of how she'll get revenge on Lucius tomorrow.

She's ready to confront _him_ head on. Now more hiding or skirting around the truth, or playing by the rules.

She's going to find Lucius, wherever he has been hiding away these past two weeks, and she is going to get the truth out of him, once and for all. Did he or did he not violate her that night?

~o~


	15. Chapter 15

~O~  
Part 15  
~o~

Hermione takes out the portkey that Lucius had given her.

Carefully removing it from the envelope without touching it, she stares at the glistening metal; the wrought bronze metal shaped into a _fleur-de-lys_ key.

If Lucius is really in France with his wife as he says, she should find him there.

Why does she get the feeling, Lucius is anywhere but with his wife?

But where else would she even begin her search for Lucius? He hasn't left one word to her in either letter or by any other means since she told him to not contact her further...in her last owl letter to him from the Ministry.

Did Lucius really back off like she requested? Or was his absence a prelude to something else?

Somehow she didn't think for one fraction of a second that Rita Skeeter's article came out the same week Lucius just so happened to disappear from her life.

 _He's baiting me_ , she thinks. _Lucius is baiting me._

It dawns on her and she finally understands Lucius's intentions: he wants me to find him.

This is the only reason he's listened to her and exited from her life for the past two weeks.

 _Lucius intends to make my life so much worse in his absence that he's convinced I'm going to beg him for his help, or for him to come back to Britain._

 _How wrong he is._

 _I know what you did,_ she thinks bitterly. I will never not want you to pay for what you did.

Finally, delaying no longer, she presses her hand around the portkey.

In a second, she is transported to the Villeneuve Manor Estate in France.

~O~

The clouds above her are churning in a grey swirl as she lands among tall grass at the bottom of the sloping hill that leads to the French manor.

It looks like it is going to rain. And somehow she thought she'd left the bad weather behind in England.

Gathering her robes, she marches up the path to the large house. The vineyard and fields, this time, appear deserted and when she knocks at the door there is no maid to greet her.

She glances over her shoulder. Why does Villeneuve Estate seem so empty like everyone has left? Narcissa and her entourage don't appear to be here. Why would Lucius be here either?

She clicks her tongue. Of course.

She bloody told Draco there was no way his father had gone to spend time with his mother in France. That was obviously just another of Lucius's lies to his son. Lucius could be anywhere but he's certainly not here with his wife.

Waving her wand at the Portkey, the petals of the fleur-de-lys open to become a regular skeleton key and Hermione inserts this into the large wooden door to open it.

She still hopes, against all doubts, that her mother-in-law might still be here and she might talk again to the wiser, older woman. Narcissa could help her figure out what to do.

"Hello? Narcissa?"

The hall is darkened yet the light of a fireplace beckons from the far end. "Are you there?"

The brunette walks down towards the fireplace in the parlour room.

"Is anyone here?" she calls out again.

 _Someone has to be here,_ she thinks. Otherwise the fireplace wouldn't have been left lit and roaring with flames. Unless Narcissa stepped out right before she arrived and meant to return. But then where is Narcissa's maids? Or her lover Fernando or Roberto or whatever his name was.

Hermione takes off her outer robe and hangs it by the fireplace; she reaches out her fingertips to warm them by the flames. She is thinking of whether she should wait here an hour or two, for the possibility Narcissa, or someone might return...when a creak on the floorboards make her snap her neck behind her.

Of bloody course.

Standing across from her in the parlour room is none other than Lucius Malfoy. His hair is down and he wears all black robes with the top button undone around his neck. His hand grasps his silver snake cane which he thumbs.

His grey eyes meet hers in greeting and she swallows the lump in her throat.

Even though Lucius really is the one she came here to see, it does not deter the complete unease she feels, in every particle of her being, at seeing Lucius again.

Besides, she didn't expect Lucius to be in France. She thought she'd see Narcissa, not him, then find out from the older woman where he might actually be.

"Hermione, what an unexpected pleasure. I thought you were trying to avoid me?" Lucius drawls and steps towards hers. "Yet you leave one country to find me in another?"

"You know I didn't expect to find you here. It is not you who I sought."

"I beg to differ. Didn't Draco tell you I was here?"

"With Narcissa, which you are not. What are you doing here?" she demands.

"Need I remind you, this is my house," he reminds her in chastisement and lowers his eyes to stare at her body.

She immediately regrets taking off her outer robe though she is wearing a green blouse and skirt that conceal her body...whenever she is around Lucius she feels so totally naked knowing how he might've violated her. And already seen every part of her.

"I don't care what it is," she snaps, because she is so far beyond the point of civility with him and has no pretenses of pretending otherwise, with everything that's happened between them. "Where is Narcissa?"

"She's not here," Lucius tells her and smugly arches an eyebrow at her. "Why don't you sit down and have a chat with me, hmmm? What did you want to speak to Narcissa for?"

His grey eyes practically smirk at her. He knows. Of course, he knows all about Rita Skeeter's article, if he did not actually hire her to write it himself.

How she longs to tear and rip at his robes though she holds back her anger. She can't let him know he's won by how upset she is.

"You know perfectly well what I want to talk about. The bloody article, Lucius." Her nostrils flare as she breathes deeply in and out. "I know you're behind it."

Lucius narrows his eyes and glances at the clock on the mantelpiece. "An article, you say?" Lucius nods his head then takes a long pause as he pretends to not know what she is speaking of. "Oh yes, I think I may have been told by an acquaintance of mine that some kind of scandalous tabloid article was written about you."

"Cut the crap. I know you're behind it."

"Rita Skeeter wrote it," Lucius reminds her all too conveniently. He goes to the cabinet to take out two glasses and a bottle of chardonnay.

She turns down the drink, disgusted he would even offer her a drink like she could stand his company.

"I know you're behind it," she repeats for the third time. "I don't care who wrote it! There is no way she'd know I was there at the restaurant at the exact same time unless you told her. There is no way she'd see us fighting in the street unless you gave her permission to follow you there. Or make up lies about me." Hermione watches the older man's reactions carefully, boring down at him with her brown eyes. "So tell me, what is you aim in all this? End Draco and I's marriage, or does family mean nothing at all to you?"

Lucius smirks and takes a sip of his goblet. "You learn quickly Hermione but you make far too many assumptions. I truly don't have anything to do with the article." He takes another step towards her so that they stand only a few feet apart. "Why would I want a scandal written about the Malfoy name, a name you now carry whether I like you or not?"

"Don't lie to me. How would Rita know I was there? You chose the restaurant."

"Irrelevant coincidences. Hardly a basis to claim I had anything to do with it. Why would I drag the Malfoy name through the mud?"

Lucius reaches out a hand to grab her by the arm but she dodges back away from him. So they stand at opposite ends of the roaring fireplace.

She so bitterly wants to scream at him for remaining so damn calm and emotionless while she feels her whole world spiraling out of control...probably at his hand, despite his clever lies to seem innocent.

"I can't imagine," she stutters. "Maybe get rid of the 'mudblood' at any cost means more to you than keeping your family's name spotless. I think you'd prefer the mud of scandal than the taint of my blood in your line?"

Lucius laughs a deep chuckle at her.

"Don't be foolish. This Rita woman obviously held a grudge against you, which came back to bite you. While I hold none."

"None?" She laughs with him. With hatred. "You hold no grudges against me?"

"Yes," he hisses with knitted brows. "You should learn to better manage your enemies from you allies. When have I ever treated you differently on the basis of blood? You know I've put the past behind us, why can't you do the same and give me the benefit of the doubt?"

"I don't believe you for one second," Hermione stammers as Lucius again attempts to tower over her and intimidate her physically. Her voice lowers to a whisper. "I know what you did to me."

Lucius stills and he raises his glass again to take a drink of the chardonnay.

"Did what to you exactly?" he drawls with dilated pupils; the grey of his eyes darkening to midnight like an eclipse. As if his eyes are turning to lust as he remember his misdeeds.

"You know exactly what you did," she says shakily. _"That night."_

Lucius's lips curl and his hand stays on his cane.

.

.

.

~o~

 **A/N: This the tipping point where everything changes and there's no return...Lucius is going to be in most chapters from now on. I can't help adding Draco scenes sometimes still simply because Hermione is still married to him but I will focus on Lucius and Hermione's interactions with him from now on.**

 **What do you think will happen in the next chapter? Will Lucius admit what he did, or will he lie and manipulate and stretch the truth? Or will he try to seduce her again, should she allow it or should she fight him for doing everything he's done to wreck her life?**

 **Is there any excuse for using polyjuice to pretend to be Draco? Is he lying about the Rita article too?**

 **Stay tuned and I will be updated The Blind Date From Hell tomorrow, my other lumione! xoxo**

 **Shoutout to thelastlynx for the amazing bundle of reviews, thank you so much I was beginning to doubt the rewrite but you made it worth it! thank you to the amazing aid4, sloan, foxesrun, guest, canuckle, chantal, sillygenie, jbyu, ulrachols, goodrich and aid4 again everyone else who took the time to review. Thank you so much :D !**


	16. Chapter 16

~o~

Lucius is still for the longest time before his mask seems to fall back into place and she can see the machinations in his head as he feigns complete innocence.

And damn him, it is such a convincing performance, so well played out, she almost doubts herself. Every word, every nuance of his body language, seems to feign innocence and ignorance of what she speaks of...but she knows Lucius far too well now to believe him he doesn't know what she's talking about. After all who on else could it have been that night?

It certainly was not Draco, he had no recollection of the evening. And Lucius was the only person who even knew they were fighting that night and closely followed her from the Manor to her flat.

"That night?" Lucius frowns down at her, imposing over her with his height and greater physicality as if to get her to back off. "What night are you talking about?"

"You know what you did," she repeats, almost for her own benefit and belief, as much as his.

Though her voice is shaky and sounds hoarse and it's overwhelming to finally confront him, her abuser, after weeks of silence and inner turmoil as she tried to hide it all from Draco, from work, from her family and even from Lucius himself..pretending she didn't know it was him. Well, the cat's out of the bag now; she can't lie to herself anymore, or let her silence destroy her. She only wants one thing: to know the truth, to hear it confirmed from his lips. Well two things, actually: the second is details of which she hasn't even begun to figure out yet.

At this moment, her eyes water and she just wants to stop feeling like she's going crazy, like she's been imagining the whole thing.

Lucius stares at her lucidly for the longest time again and words fail both of them. It feels like a staring contest, or some other growing tension between them.

"No, I don't think so," Lucius whispers and then that mask slips right back onto his face as he opts to cover his tracks. "I haven't the _slightest_ , remotest idea what you are speaking about, my daughter. You sound positively disturbed," he insinuates there is something wrong with her.

"You bastard."

Hermione exhales heavily. This is a great blow, perhaps as heavy as if Lucius had physically pummeled her with his bare hands...It's worse then even Draco slapping her on the face, or during the war, Bellatrix hitting her so hard her neck snapped back as she burned her wrist with those words 'mudblood'.

...The effect of his words, his lies, his god damn denial, is like a million bruises to her being. It takes all of her willpower to not become hysterical or break down and cry begging him to admit it, or better yet, attack him and force him to tell the truth.

And she realizes how bloody naive she's been...again.

Lucius Malfoy is going to drag her to hell and back before he admits any wrongdoing. He's a Malfoy and Slytherin to his core. Was she really stupid enough to think Lucius Malfoy would come clean about anything that could possibly incriminate him? Of course bloody not.

But she refuses to relinquish her hold on the truth just yet. She is an adult, she can see through his lies.

 _"You know what you did,"_ she repeats lowly and realizes her voice came out as a faint whisper. Almost as if, with his soul crushing, she has lost strength while he has gained some over her.

He sneers and curls his lip at her, almost as if he is offended, though the steely core in his grey eyes tell her there is some tension underneath the surface.

"Careful, Granger, you're making a lofty accusation."

"I thought you didn't know _what_ I was accusing you of?"

"No, but it doesn't take much to elucidate from your extreme reactions and how upset you are, that is something grave and very serious you accuse me of."

"Not accuse. I _know_. There's no accusation here."

Lucius stares haughtily down at her. "Again I have no clue what you speak of, only that it is grave indeed. Why don't you tell me the details?" he drawls casually. "Refresh my memory."

The smallest of smiles played on his lips and they both know he has won at this point. Checkmate. Humiliation. Re-victimizing her all over again.

She manages to hold his gaze as his eyes burn into her but it's as if she's been gutted from the inside. Like there's nothing left inside her; Lucius has cleaned out her innards like a fish he's gutted out her clean so there is nothing left in her.

"Do you really expect me to go over my attack in detail?" she hisses and chokes on her words.

She is so ashamed they are even having this conversation right now, the wildly inappropriate way it is playing out, so out of her control. Somehow she imagined him confessing the truth or her taking out her wand and _crucioing_ him into spouting the truth. She's so desperate for the truth, she's not beyond dark magic at this point. But then Lucius could easily take out his wand too and the situation could become even uglier and grislier than it already is. Yet she isn't going to let him walk away from this, no matter how much he denies it or pretends to know nothing. She has to get him to say the truth. She needs to hear it from his cruel lips whether it takes hours or days longer before he finally does of his own accord and she can make sense of the whole mess.

"If I am to be accused by you, I should like to know what you accuse me of, hmm?" he presses.

There are no words to encapsulate her anger or frustration. Perhaps a part of her mind has shut down and she has gone into a state of shock because she finds herself numbly going along with his suggestion of going over that night with him.

"Go on," he goads her.

Her cheeks flush and she is shaking so hard she is forced to sit down on the chaise lounge. When she speaks again, she can't even recognize her voice, it doesn't feel like it's her talking though the words slip out of her mouth true enough and it feels like the night happened yesterday.

"I came back to my flat after my fight with Draco, the night he slapped me. We'd been arguing. I came back to the flat, I was crying and upset. When I thought I was alone, I heard footsteps come into the house. I wasn't sure it was Draco at first, something seemed off. But when I turned on the lights, it was Draco, my husband. He told me he was sorry and..." her voice halts and she can't bring herself to say anymore. It cuts too deeply.

"And what?" Lucius raises his eyebrow and cruelly smiles. "That is it, you accuse me of Draco apologizing to you? How does that make sense for you to be so distraught and angry _at me_?"

Hermione's anger comes pouring back into her blood veins and revitalizing her with strength.

She stands up off the chaise and confronts the man who has caused her so much damage and grief.

"AND," she hisses directly at him. "The man who apologized to me that night, the man who I ended up having sex with the whole night, the man who I thought was my husband, turned out to be an imposter." A single tear came down her eye. "Draco was never there that night. It was someone else, who knew me, who knew I'd been fighting with Draco, who slipped into our house using polyjuice and got me to undress."

Lucius has an unreadable expression on his face. "So you did have sex outside marriage. And you said Rita spoke only lies.."

"I was tricked, I was basically raped!" she screams hoarsely.

Her breath came hard and fast. While Lucius stood stonily staring at her.

She felt ashamed a moment ago, but then she thinks: _Why should she hide any detail?_ He knew as much as her. Lucius did these things to her, after all. She should not feel ashamed to tell him what he did to her.

" _He_ violated me in every way there is to be violated. _He_ placed his cock, disguised as my husband, in my mouth, down my throat and pretty much anywhere _he_ could. The sex was unprotected, anything could have happened!" she screamed at him madly and wondered why she even bothered to say 'him' or 'he' when she should just scream ' _you Lucius_ '.

"That sounds like quite the night." He looks thoughtfully down at his hands." Are you sure the article Rita Skeeter wrote about you isn't true? It wasn't Ernie or Harry Potter that night?"

"It was you!"

"Miss Granger, that is an astonishing claim." He pauses and his eyes flicker downwards over her as his long blonde hair fell over his eyes. "Do you have any proof?"

"I don't need any proof. This is between you and me."

"Or a guilty conscious, and lack of evidence, prevents you from taking any judiciary action," he finishes for her. Utterly defeating any hope of remorse she hoped to illicit from him. Is he even human, she wonders, behind the facade?

Something finally snaps inside her. She can't restrain her fury at Lucius for a second longer. Or this mutual tiptoeing around the truth. Lucius has had her dancing in circles like a monkey. But no more. No matter how much, or how elegantly, Lucius pretends it wasn't him who tricked her that night and raped her, she has never, and never will, lose sight of the truth amid all his clever lies. Perhaps she should get his confession now and be done with it, revealing the whole disaster to everyone, including Draco, consequences be damned.

She digs out her wand from her pocket and points it through the air towards Lucius.

"Careful," he warns her and removes his hand from the snake cane.

She ignores his warning and prepares to disarm him. If he weren't such a lying bastard, she wouldn't need to resort to forcing the truth out of him, yet she feels she has to before she goes mad.

 _"Expelleriamus!" Arresto momentum!"_ she fires off two spells aimed at Lucius's head in quick succession.

Lucius scoffs at her as he dodges her spell then deflects it back with a ramifying spell that disarms her own wand and stings her hand with an invisible burn when she tries to grab it back.

"You cannot win against me Hermione, do not even try."

In a split second, her wand has flown into his elegantly outstretched hand.

The sight of her wand, her most valued and intimate possession, in his hands triggers something inside her.

"Give me back my wand!"

She lunges towards him scratching at Lucius's perfect face with her hands.

The sheer physicality of her attack, momentarily, takes the blonde wizard off guard before his own temper rises and he body slams her against the wall to restrain her.

His hands clamp down on either side of her hands; she notices then how large and powerful his hands are, though he uses them so rarely in favour of magic. Yet she can feel the weight and strength of his biceps as he keeps her in place and she cant even squirm underneath his grip, though he does not hurt her, she is completely immobilized and this is humiliating beyond anything. He holds her hands above her head on the wall behind her. He leans in towards her and she is suffocated by his proximity...which she cannot endure.

"Why are you so angry about this attack? It sounds like you had an enjoyable night with someone you thought was your husband." His grey eyes bore into her. "Or am I mistaken in assuming you enjoyed every last bit of it? I imagine you moaned a lot, didn't you? I heard enough of your moaning with Draco in my house."

She burns in a thousand flames of humiliation at the partial seed of truth hidden among all his lies.

Yet there is something more going on here beyond the trauma and hate and anger she feels. There is something else...she can't quite put her finger on or touch for fear it will burn her even more than his spells did.

Their faces are only a few inches apart and more than once she thinks she catches Lucius's eyes dilate or linger a second too long than necessary on her lips or eyes.

This is dangerous ground they tread upon.

"Let go of me!" she hisses and shakes violently against his grip though it's like being incarcerated to be held in Lucius's hands.

"No, I insist on detaining you til you calm down," he chuckles as if enjoying her struggle. "You just attacked me."

"You deserved it!"

Lucius shakes his head, his long hair becoming unruly as it falls into his face again. "Whether I do or not, you'll have to try harder _to disarm me."_

His grey eyes met hers and her heart pounds in her chest a feeling of both hot and cold in her body.

Something too seems to churn inside his eyes though she can't say for sure either what it might be. Hatred, or lust, or more cruelty, she realizes she doesn't actually understand this man whatsoever...otherwise she'd never have allowed him to get under her skin.

Lucius breathes in sharply though his nose as he peered down his nose at her. "How can you say with so much conviction that it was me. What if you're wrong?"

"Who else would it be?"

"How many enemies do you have? It could be someone else coming out of the woodwork...like Rita."

"No, I know it was you."

"How?" His hands grips on her wrists tightens as he clamps them together over her head.

He frees his other hand to trace down her neck.

Hermione shivers and wishes she could block out both his touch and his presence but there is nowhere to run, not when he holds her like this.

His taunting eyes stare her down telling her to prove what she knows it was him, by showing him what happened between her and the doppelganger Draco.

"How can you know it was me, if you've never known my touch?"

"You're unimaginably scandalous." She bit out. "And indecent. I can't believe you would even suggest—"

"Miss Granger," he interrupts her. "It is you who suggests I slept with you under guise of a polyjuice. What reason do you have to claim it was I, not Draco?"

He strokes her lips almost lovingly with the his thumb, dipping her lower lip down to bare her teeth to him.

"Let go of me!" she hisses and flails wildly trying to kick him with her legs but he soon presses that too to restrain her. She swallows down the bile in her throat at having her touch her.

"No, let's not play around the _truth_. Let's be adults shall way? You want revenge. That is what you're after, isn't it?"

"No!" she screams finally at the top of her lungs; her voice so loud it hurts her throat. "I just want the truth! I want you to admit what you've done and I want you to tell Draco and Narcissa what a bastard you really are."

"That's not happening."

"So you admit what you did?"

"Not at all, I admit nothing. I just don't want you filling my son's head with fanciful lies about me."

"They're not lies! Why can't you tell the truth for once in your life!"

"What is the real lie, I wonder, Hermione?" he asks her scathingly, his voice heavy with insinuation as his eyes lower over her. But then he turns it around and finally gives her an ultimatum as his grey eyes stare at her pointedly. "But because I'm feeling generous: I will tell you the truth, under veritaserum if need be, _after_ you sleep with me."

"That will NEVER happen."

She slaps him and, to her surprise, he let's her go.

She doesn't give Lucius a chance to change his mind, or risk a further battle. She bends to the ground to retrieve her wand then runs as fast as her legs will carry her out of Villeneuve.

When she reaches the outdoors, the sun is nowhere to be seen and rain is pouring down the perimeters heavily.

The awestruck brunette tries to apparate on the grounds but the wards disable her attempts. She has to reach the end of the lawn, of the property, to be able to leave.

As if all her liberty and life rests on this moment, Hermione runs, slippery and sliding, down the muddy hillside to the end of the Malfoy's Villeneuve property.

Her eyes glance one more time at the house, where she imagines Lucius is looking out a window at her, before she opens the gate up and apparates on the other side.

~o~

a/n: So Hermione has two choices: revenge or revenge. What is she going to do, or is Lucius going to beat her at her own game by destroying her life and reputation more before she comes crawling back to him? Is she in love with him or does she only hate him?

Is there any possibility he can seduce her again or is she already too far in this but lying to them both that she desperately wants his touch? and maybe also to strangle him...


	17. Chapter 17

**~o~**

 **Father in Law Issues:**

 **Part 17**

 **~o~**

"You're covered in mud," is the first thing Draco says as he watches her in shock as she shakily walks through their front door.

She ignores his obvious statement of her complete state of disarray. Draco must think she went through a tornado or something with her windswept, wet hair and disheveled clothes and tear stained eyes...but if only it were that simple. A tornado passing through her life would be infinitely simpler and easier to deal with than his damn father.

Draco follows after her as she ignores him and heads to the bathroom to change out of her clothes.

"What the hell is going on Hermione? Where have you been?"

Hermione throws him a scathing look over her shoulder as she takes off her wet and muddy clothes. Soon she is naked and running her hands under the water as she starts filling the bathtub. She pretends Draco isn't there as she gets ready to wash herself off. She knows better than to ignore Draco but the need to wash herself is manic. As if every drop of mud and dirt on her body is an emblematic of Lucius...that she urgently needs to scrub off before it drives her mad.

Draco doesn't miss her mania and stops her from getting into the tub by waving his wand at the taps and stopping the flow of water.

"Are you not going to answer me at all, or tell me what in god's name, you've been up to?" Draco demands, standing by the tub, as he watches her every move and refuses to leave the vicinity.

"I was out," she grits with her teeth clench, still refusing to meet his eyes. Because he might see the emotion there in her eyes and know something is up.

"Out involves getting covered in mud now?" Draco snaps. "Why the sod do you look like you had a wrestling match with a pig?"

"I got caught in the rain."

"It wasn't raining here," Draco chastises her in a way almost reminiscent of his snide father. "Where were you?"

Oh shit. She hadn't thought of that. She'd been in France where it had been raining in that particular region of Villeneuve. Meanwhile, London, usually rainy, had actually been completely dry today.

Hermione's jaw works to open and close a bit. She doesn't like lying to him like this. But then can she really say where she's been?

But then if she lies to Draco, she'll be stooping to Lucius's level of lies and deception. She doesn't want to stoop to Lucius's level yet.

She relinquishes her grip on the bathtub's knobs and finally looks up into Draco's eyes. He's frowning at her in a way that's all at once too caring and yet too concerned for her, as if he doesn't understand who she is anymore. Her red rimmed eyes, however, probably tell him enough to go by.

"I took a portkey," she says as vaguely as possible, hoping he won't ask more. Not at least until she sorts out her head better.

"You've been crying."

She shivers. "Something happened."

"What happened?" Draco demands and stares far too deep into her eyes for her comfort.

She breaks the eye contact and glowers down at her dirty hands again. The dirt and line of mud under her nails is bothering her far beyond what should be reasonable. She dips one hand into the water already in the bathtub, watching as the water turns muddy from her touch, and she pointedly ignores Draco again.

As she turns the tap to start the water filling the bath again, however, his hand clenches over hers and only a drop falls from the faucet.

"Well are you going to tell me?"

"I can't."

Draco steps in behind her and holds her both her hands to make him face her.

"Tell me," he pleads, as much with his voice as his eyes. Draco's blue-grey eyes, while somewhat identical to his father, actually have warmth in them. A living, breathing soul, even if flawed, Draco is all too human. it's written all over his face: his concern for her, his enduring faith and need to believe that they still can make everything right between them.

And it saddens her that they've come to this. That their marriage is so fraught they even one of them can hold secrets or animosity like this.

"Would you even believe me, if I told you?" she asks back cryptically. Unable to take Draco's puppy dog eyes any longer, her gaze lowers back down to her nails. There's dirt under her nails and somehow this is driving her mad, as mad as the memory of Lucius's wild ultimatum. She never before now felt such a violent hatred towards his father, or any single human being, like she would do anything to get back at Lucius...or even for a moment, hear the bastard speak the truth from his own lips and admit the wrong he had done her...And Draco too in a way. Lucius had wronged his son as much as he had wronged her.

But that is where the issue lay.

Draco presses his hands over her hands again, curling them up underneath his hands to form a fist.

"Of course I would believe you. I am your husband."

How badly she wishes she could wholeheartedly believe him whenever he said that.

"I know," she whispers sadly and allows Draco to kiss her on the cheek, then on the lips.

Then in defeated acquiescence she watches in a strange, almost surreal, fascination as Draco fills up the rest of the bathtub for her then undresses himself and pulls her in. The water fills in around them both as Draco grabs a wash cloth and scrubs at her skin for her, their legs intertwined, as she lays her head back against his familiar chest.

"I don't want to lose you," he says into her wet hair as they lay together in the bath, after he has washed her hair. "I know I did you wrong, but I don't want you...wherever you were today...thinking that two wrongs make a right."

"Do you think I'm cheating?" she asks in a hushed tone.

"No," Draco replies almost apologetic. "I didn't say that...but I know something is going on, you're considering something, or perhaps someone. I don't want us to lose what we have, do you?"

She nods and closes her eyes as she rests against Draco's chest.

He can't see her when they're both facing ahead in the same direction, but a tear falls down her cheek.

How can she burst his bubble by telling Draco that they are already losing what they had? That their marriage has been crumbling for ages now and by one source: his own father.

Yet their marriage used to be beautiful once, just moments like these where they shared a bath or Draco showed a caring that was beyond anything she could've asked for her in a husband.

More tears fall down her eyes and this time Draco hears her crying and doesn't try to stop her or ask her more questions. He simply holds her tightly against his chest as she breaks down completely

She is mourning, the love they used to have...the love that Lucius made sure to destroy by crushing it under foot. And violating her marriage in the most twisted way possible...by tricking her into infidelity. Rape really. Though the worse part is she is not agonized by that night. She'd rather not think of that night at all, really, because it had..been..something sensual and pleasurable. And that is the crux of her dilemma.

So...Maybe there is no chance of recovery.

But if she lets the growing distance and issues between Draco and herself completely tear them apart...wouldn't that be letting Lucius win?

Wouldn't Lucius positively gloat to hear of his son's divorce from the mudblood he never wanted in the family in the first place? She could imagine the glee in Lucius's smirk.

Hermione can't let him win so easily.

She has to try.

She has to try to rebuild the shatters of her marriage and the deep connection she once felt for only Draco. The connection they felt before they both broke each others trust: Draco by hitting her, and her by sleeping or lusting after another man. Though both actions were directly motivated or caused by a single force: his father.

~o~

"I want to tell you more," she says shakily, hours later, after they had a peaceful dinner and the memory of their heated argument earlier in the bathtub is just that...only a memory.

There is no strife here. No anger. No violence. It's almost like an evening they used to have all the time

...Except on the inside she knows Lucius has gutted her. She's still a fish flopping around with everything missing on the inside though she appears the same on the outside...she can't breathe the air. She can't even feel her heart anymore...does she have a heart? Is her mind still working the same?

Or has she shut off her own mind so she doesn't have to think of that night or Lucius? Because surely such thoughts would break her down if she kept thinking of them.

Draco wraps his arms around her from behind her. "Tell me. You can trust me."

His willingness to cooperate with her, and talk maturely of their issues, is almost hard to believe.

Where is the more immature, volatile Draco who lashed out at her when she insulted his father? Who slapped her cruelly when she dared to step a foot out of line in the Malfoy order.

She closes her eyes as Draco's hands encircle her waist. "I don't know," she breathes out heavily as Draco places a kiss on her neck.

She shuts her eyes more firmly as Draco tries to convince her with his lips that she can trust him. He kisses her deeply and more roughly as he makes his way to her lips and then parts them with his tongue.

As his tongue plunges into her mouth, she keeps her eyes firmly shut. Even as Draco leads her to bed and spreads her legs open, she doesn't look at him. She's barely present mentally, even as he pushes her back on the bed and inserts himself roughly, she detaches herself from the situation, numbs and distances herself by blinding herself. Perhaps Draco hasn't noticed because their bedroom is dark and only half-lit.

But if he looked at her closely as he penetrated her, he would've understood one thing: she didn't close her eyes out of pleasure, she closed them to try to shut out that feeling of intense emptiness.

The emptiness of realizing she isn't that responsive to Draco anymore.

The emptiness of knowing she isn't in love with her husband anymore.

The emptiness of knowing her marriage is now a lie in the making.

The realization that nothing Draco did to her body or said could make her respond on the same level she did that night...with him.

Of all the lies Lucius spoke, there is that one truth. And it haunts her as cruelly as the memory of his touch.

As Draco comes in her, she is flooded with the memory of a different man coming in her, her hair wrapped around his hand like a coil as he filled her with his seed.

When she opens her eyes again, she cries hysterically in humiliation.

~O~


	18. Chapter 18

~o~

Later as she lays in bed beside Draco that night, and Draco wraps his arms around her, she is shocked to feel how incredibly...guilty she feels. Not because of anything she did, purposefully or intended to do. But because of the ultimatum his father gave her...that scandalous, absolutely shocking ultimatum...that she had no intention of ever agreeing to.

Lucius must be mad if he thought for one second that she'd agree to it. Agree to have a second round with her rapist? To prove that he actually raped her?

The offer is laughably insane. Like being offered to be killed to prove you are alive.

She shudders to think Lucius even thought she'd be capable of agreeing to such a ludicrous offer. What was Lucius thinking? He usually acted so suave and manipulative, yet when his gaslighting hadn't worked, he moved onto to that ludicrous offer?

She'd sooner attack him with her wand again. In fact, she starts to mull over several avenues of possibility. Invite him to something with Draco and Narcissa, then slip Veritaserum into his drink or Imperius him to tell the truth in front of them.

...But then once Draco and Narcissa knew...what then? Her marriage would be deader than a doorknob, as completely over as a house after a level five earthquake.

And is it so hypocritical that she doesn't want to let go yet of her marriage, even for the truth?

Maybe this is why she feels guilty.

She'd rather keep cover and hide Lucius's lies of that night, or at least keep it between them, than actually let everything explode out into the public or for Draco to know and hate her for it.

Because she can't see how Draco could possibly forgive her, even if it was rape. It would shake Draco to the core of his foundations.

How could he sleep with her again knowing his father had slept with her? Or feel about her the same way knowing his father touched her?

If she knew anything about Draco it is that he was slow to forgive and his pride would not allow any onslaughts onto his family.

Draco's reaction if he discovered the truth weighs heavily on her mind...constantly.

She knows Draco would absolutely lose his mind if he came to know anything that passed.

But would Draco take his father's side or hers. Or neither. That is what she cant imagine among all the blunderbuss and mayhem.

So she has never felt so far away from Draco while being so simultaneously close. Like she's having an affair behind her husband's back and yet she never agreed to this. She never willingly strayed from Draco...or had sex with another man willingly.

...Or did she?

Did she actually know, or at the barest minimum suspect, it had been Lucius all along? Didn't she used to lust over Lucius in the beginning before she realized just how much of a bastard he was?

 _He's played me like a fiddle,_ she thinks and begins to sob silently into her pillow. He must've seen the look in my eye and knew he could take advantage of me, one way or another, covertly when she turned him down overtly.

She wishes she could strangle herself now for ever trusting or wanting Lucius for a second. She should've told Draco from the beginning to keep a ten mile parameter between her and his father if this relationship was going to work.

...Now look at their marriage.

"Why are you crying? You woke me up," Draco whispers and kisses at her shoulder; he wraps his body around her from behind, pressing into her soothingly as they lay side by side in bed. So perfectly close and so perfectly far away. At one time, nothing would've soothed her more than having Draco wrap his warmth around her.

...Now look what she's done to him...with his own father.

As warm as Draco is, his father is...she imagines...cold as ice. She shivers thinking if Lucius were laying behind her, whether she would feel chilled to the bone.

"What's wrong?" Draco pushes back her hair behind her ear and nuzzles against her.

Another wave of guilt, cold and hot, splashes over her and she realizes she's doing exactly what Lucius wants: hiding things from Draco and playing along by making her marriage like Lucius's and Narcissa's...filled with lies.

 _I can't hide from him. I can't hide the truth from him,_ she thinks over and over again. Yet the words fail to come out of her lips: Draco your father tricked me into sleeping with him. Draco your father is a bastard. Draco your wife actually enjoyed sleeping with your father. Draco a part of me actually knew it was him. Draco I loved it as your father inserted his cock into...

 _No. no. no._ She blocks out the thoughts. The traitorous, horrible thoughts for that horrible bastard. That even now, after all he's done, she can't get out of her mind.

"I am trapped," she sobs.

"Trapped in this marriage? What do you mean trapped." Draco shakes at her shoulders, his voice a harsh and broken whisper. His voice already so pained and he doesn't even know half the truth but he knows something bad is happening.

She furiously wipes at her eyes, recollecting herself. She has to stop this.

"I mean someone is...forcing me. Manipulating me." _Forced me_ , she thinks. _He already forced me once to have sex with him. Now he's writing articles with Skeeter to make me seem like an adulteress._ Who knows what punch Lucius would pull next to undermine her and her marriage to Draco.

"Who?!" Draco asks and he grabs her and forces her to look at him in the eyes.

His eyes are already watering and full of betrayal.

The word 'who' lays there like an unreachable distance between them that can't be crossed. It's bigger than an ocean.

How badly she wants to tell him. Yet she can't hurt him...not yet. She can't let this marriage end. She can't let Lucius gloat knowing he got rid of the mudblood that dared to enter his illustrious family.

She breathes in sharply. _No, Lucius I won't let you win._

"I can't tell you who!"

"Is it someone at work?" Draco demands.

"No. Yes, sort of."

"Is this about Ernie Mcmillan?" the question sounds more like a statement. Does Draco really believe that?

"No god damn it. That article was complete rubbish." God damn Skeeter.

"Then who is it."

"I can't say. They're sort of blackmailing me."

"Is it Rita?"

"No but yes, partially. She's involved in this." How she wants to murder that woman or just crush a random beetle and imagine it's her.

Draco lets go of her, to roll her around and stare her directly in the eye.

"Can you please," his voice is heavy almost with sarcasm, "not tell me this is about my father again? I told you he had nothing to do with the article."

Hermione flinches away from Draco. How Draco can be so wrong and yet right at the same time. Right person, his father, but wrong beliefs about said person. Draco has a completely different image of Lucius than what is the reality. Draco still thinks his father is next to saintly and just. He can't even begin to contemplate that his father is a bastard, can he?

If Draco can't even believe his father could get a bad tabloid written about her, how can he possibly believe his father would slept with her? She really is fucking trapped.

"Draco—"

"No, don't tell me. You think my father is in a conspiracy with the media to malign you? He's not even in the country."

"I know that! But that's not what I'm saying—"

"He's with my mother, Hermione. Let it go."

That is a lie. That is a fucking lie, like everything else about Lucius.

"He's —" a rapist. But her throat constricts.

"My father is..." Draco begins.

A liar, a manipulator, a philanderer, an adulterer, gas lighter, an unscrupulous bastard, she fills in mentally but can't bring herself to say it.

"...The person I'm closest to and love the most," Draco finishes and squeezes her hand. "Besides you, of course."

His sincere words make her lose her breath.

His grey eyes are so convinced as he stares into her brown eyes and pulls a stray hair out of her face.

How can she tell him. How CAN she tell him. Bloody fucking hell. Shatter his views of both people he claimed to love most in the world?

"I can't do this." She pulls away from him and gets out of the bed.

But Draco follows her as she dashes to their living room.

"Do what?"

She can't sleep beside her husband tonight, or maybe any other night. Not when he's so bleeding delusional about his father and she's covering for Lucius, willingly or not.

"I can't...Lie to you."

But the truth given all at once might shatter him.

She has to give him the truth piece meal, one bit at a time.

"What about? Where you were today?" Draco arches his brow accusingly. He really does think she's having an affair doesn't he? The damn article put a seed of doubt into his mind that he can't let go.

"Draco your father isn't with your mother."

Draco narrows his eyes. "How would you know?"

"I saw him today."

"So that's where you were? In bloody France?"

"Yes, but your mother wasn't there."

"Why were you in France?" Draco asks, his voice more than a note of suspicion now.

"Please, it's not me you should be suspicious of, but your father. He was at Villeneuve."

"I don't know but I'm sure he had his reasons."

"Draco can't you see your father is lying to you?"

Draco's expression grew unimaginably angry. "What are you trying to get at? What is it you have against my father. Are you trying to imply he's cheating on my mother?"

"I didn't say that."

"No, you're implying it though," Draco says aghast, his face getting pale. "And I don't see why it's any business of yours to say such horrible things about him."

"Oh Draco, for fucks's sake." She thinks back to what Narcissa said of being careful wtih Draco and her son not being able to see the reality of those he loved. The idealization and pedelesization Draco put on those he loved.

"You don't understand my father. We had a talk. He's trying to bring the family together. That's why he left the country. He was giving your space and he is with my mother. If my mother left, that is on her, not my father."

"So why do you think she left if he's at Villeneuve?"

"I can't imagine why Hermione. Are you going to imply my mother's cheating now?"

Hermione considers whether she should actually tell him that. Perhaps it might help Draco better see his parents if he knew for a fact at least one part of their marriage he thought real...proved to be fake. Although Narcissa didn't seem to want her open marriage to be made known to her son, so that might be breaching Narcissa's trust, even if she didn't give a damn about Lucius's attempts to silence her. Hermione didn't feel quite ready to throw Narcissa under the bus to get at Lucius.

Hermione bites her lips. She can't for Narcissa's sake. The poor women must already have suffered being married to a sociopath like Lucius.

"I don't know." Oh god damn it. More lying for Lucius's sake. Did Lucius always and forever get others to do his dirty work for him? Or did he leave everyone around him with no other choice?

"This is complete and utter bollocks, everything you've said about my parents is so...so ridiculous." Draco swears under his breath before staring at her like he doesn't even know her anymore. "Hermione you really are going mental."

"I beg your pardon?" Her stomach twists.

"My father told me your situation. I didn't want to believe it."

"What situation?" Her heart flip flops sickly against her ribs.

"He told me you're so upset about the article, you would do anything to project what the article accused you off onto others. You're doing to my father what Skeeter did to you, telling far-fetched tales."

"Oh god, you're fucking clueless if you think that's my issue with your bloody father!"

She finally shoves Draco away from her and stampedes from the room, grabbing her coat and throwing it over her nightgown before snapping up her wand .

"Where are you going?"

"I'm going to Harry's," she hisses and grabs a handful of Floo powder. "I can't take this anymore."

"To Harry's?" Draco asks darkly, and she does not miss the tone of insinuation in his voice.

His hand reaches out to grab her by the wrist, preventing her from throwing the Floo powder into their fireplace.

"Let go of me Draco," she warns as she lifts her wand to point at him.

Draco is unfettered. There is something wild, almost jealousy, in his darkening eyes.

"You're going to go to Harry's at this hour? In the middle of the night when him and his wife are sleeping?"

"Harry's my oldest friend, he'll understand," she says in a dead panned tone. "Now let go of me."

Draco releases her in disgust. "I didn't want to believe it."

"Believe what?"

"Believe what the article says! But something doesn't sit right with the way you've been behaving lately. You're hiding something. It's about Harry isn't it?"

He could not have said a worse thing to her. She shakily walks through the Floo powder, ignoring Draco and not even dignifying his insulting claim with an answer. Harry is her friend, her only friend apparently since Ron stopped talking to her years ago and her husband didn't even believe her anymore or act like her friend. She used to think of her husband as her best friend...how wrong her beliefs are proving to be.

"Godric's Hollow," she whispers with tears stinging at her eyes.

Her last image is of Draco's grey eyes full of emotion and hurt as if she is the one betraying his trust.

No, Draco, you've betrayed my trust by not believing me, by believing Rita Skeeter's lies and your father's lies over my attempts to tell you the truth.

Because you wouldn't listen, would you? You wouldn't listen to the truth or believe me in a million years unless you actually saw your father on top of me with your own eyes, Draco.

She falls to her knees by their fireplace as she arrives at Harry's quiet suburban house.

"Harry?"

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~o~

a/n: Next chapter harry and then another lucius scene. Isn't that so convenient that the article saying she was cheating on draco with harry and ernie, such perfect timing? wow now draco really thinks she is cheating and with those two, instead of seeing the lying traitorous father in his own family

what do you think hermione should do?


	19. Chapter 19

_**~O~**_

 _ **Father in Law Issues:**_

 _ **Part 19**_

 _ **~O~**_

She falls to her knees by their fireplace as she arrives at Harry's quiet suburban house in Godric's Hollow. There is dust on her knees yet as she stands up she immediately feels safer knowing she is in friendly territory. Brushing off the soot and ashes from herself, she purses her lips and looks around their living room. So different from Malfoy Manor, or even her own flat. Their is a certain coziness, and sweetness, that her decor at home lacks.

Pictures of the Weasleys and of Ginny and Harry's wedding line the walls. She illuminates the walls with the bluish faint light from her wand. She knows better than to turn on the lights and wake them.

She stares down the hallway where their bedroom is.

"Harry?" she asks quietly. She doesn't want to wake them if they're sleep. The door is closed and Merlin knows it's 2am by now, they probably are. No one answers.

She finds her way back to the living room and decides perhaps she'd better sleep on the couch until she can talk to Harry in the morning.

She certainly can't go back. To Draco or the whole Malfoy dynasty fiasco. Seriously what had she been thinking getting involved in a twisted pureblood supremacist family like the Malfoys? Everything had been simpler when she was with Ron; the Weasley's were genuinely good people, she never had to worry with them. Or be having the same issues, if she were still with Ron.

But the Malfoys?

Even if Draco had sincerely changed and reformed since the end of the war, his family obviously had not. And she realizes, though it was never a choice falling in love with Draco, she should've been more precautious about accepting his proposal.

Because yes falling in love with Draco, and him with her, had been a complete accident. The buoyancy of their love and the optimism of the postwar era had propelled her to trust implicitly that a union of a muggleborn and scion of a pureblood dynasty...could work. That times had changed and these purebloods could accept her, if merely on a surface level.

But she had underestimated just how underhanded or all-controlling a father-in-law Lucius Malfoy could be.

She wonders now if Lucius ever had any sincere attraction to her, or whether that is a ruse too, to seduce her and discharge her from the family in the most underhanded manner? She wouldn't put it past Lucius. Though it is singularly distressing to consider Lucius would sleep with her, using polyjuice, simply to remove her from his family. Sort of a sacrifice on his part: manipulate and seduce the mudblood to save his own family line before Draco had children with her.

The thought makes her shudder. The extent to which Lucius Malfoy will go to manipulate her...

"Hermione?" Harry's voice makes her jump.

She hadn't even noticed him creeping up behind her til he stands there by the fireplace. He's wearing pajama pants and holding a glass of water as if he's just gotten up to have a drink.

"Harry! I thought you were asleep."

Harry laughs quietly. "No can't sleep ever since the war, remember the tent? How we used to stay up playing cards? Ron hated it."

"Yes, I remember." She sighs at the familiar memory, though it is long ago. The Horcruxe hunt when they'd all stayed together in a tent had been the closest Harry and herself had ever been. Especially when Ron ran out on them, albeit temporarily. Those months in the tent had forged their friendship deeper.

"Yeah Ginny is sleeping so don't make too much noise." Harry points his wand at the door to the living room to click it shut, locking them both in the room together. "What's going on? Are you alright?" he grabs her hand, as if examining it for wounds, then reassured he let's go of her hand.

"I'm fine physically Harry, it's just..."

"What?"

Her friend's face is half lit in the dark as he stares down at her, his glasses off since Ginny made him take a vision restoring spell. He hasn't used his glasses in years, still sometimes she misses the way Harry looked more familiar with his old frames on. Truthfully, she never got used to seeing the better looking version of Harry that never wore glasses and had those green eyes that stare at her.

"Should I turn on the lights?" she asks, switching the topic.

Harry shakes his head and he slides down onto the sofa with her, sitting only a foot apart. "No, if I see lights now, I won't be able to go back to sleep at all. What happened? Tell me," he demands with deep concern.

Hermione takes a deep breath and wonders where on earth to begin? Harry would never judge her in a million years, Harry has always been by her side...yet she wonders if it's a good idea yet, until she has all the evidence.

She stares at Harry in the dark, wondering just how much she should tell him.

"It's an issue we've been having...Draco and I have been fighting. Again."

"Merlin. Sorry," Harry says but there's a strange intonation to his voice, like he's partly relieved their marriage is failing.

Hermione does a double take, wondering why Harry would be relieved she's fighting with Draco? But then she shakes the feeling off. Harry has always been slightly off in gauging emotional reactions since he died in the war, then came back to life in time to kill Voldemort. He's never been quite the same Harry since. Trauma of having seen death and the other side, Hermione assumes, must've detached him from this plane. Though she loves and cares for Harry just as much as if he hadn't changed from the innocent boy she grew up with, she knows there's something disconnected about him now. Though Merlin knows, she's become disconnected and unhinged too, so she's one to judge her poor friend...

"What happened? Did Draco do, or say, something?" Harry's voice has a raw edge to it, as if greatly angered, and could easily be provoked to do vigilante justice on her behalf.

"No...he hasn't. I mean, he's said a whole lot of stupid things, but Draco hasn't really done anything..."

"Except be a tosser," Harry finishes for her.

Hermione grits her teeth together. How she wishes—even just a month ago—she could correct Harry by telling him he's wrong about Draco. Except she isn't sure about Draco anymore. Or any of the Malfoys. And she can't correct him or comment on his assessment with any conviction. So she doesn't correct Harry and this is like admitting defeat in itself.

Her eyes well up and she tries to sniff back the avalanche of restless feelings trying to over swamp her. She's relieved they are in the dark now otherwise he'd see how completely broken her eyes are.

"He hit you didn't he?" Harry asks suddenly, sitting closer to her on the couch.

The question catches her off guard. And she sniffs again.

It takes her a long time to find her voice again. "How did you know? I didn't tell anyone."

"It's obvious. I can see it and hear it in your voice...how he's hurt you. Gods Hermione."

She nods numbly and the tears she held back, begin to fall freely down her cheek. Harry catches a few of her tears with his thumb before drawing his hand back from her face.

She wipes at her face, not wanting Harry to feel sorry for her. She hates how weak and embarrassed she feels admitting this to Harry. "He slapped me once, Harry, weeks ago. It's not even what we were fighting about tonight. You don't have to worry..."

"Merlin, I knew you shouldn't have married him." Harry grimaces, his tone vicious. "I should've stopped you!"

"Harry it isn't Draco, not really, who's causing me problems."

"NO! It is Draco," Harry lashes out of nowhere, his voice now louder than a whisper. What happened to not trying to wake Ginny? Hermione wonders. Why was Harry getting so mad and shouting?

"Harry can you calm down, that isn't all there is to it. There's so, so much more."

"He hit you. He's an evil snake!" Harry says adamantly, an almost unhinged look of fury in his green eyes. "Why didn't you tell me or come here sooner? You can't go back to him, Hermione, not after what he's done."

If only she could tell Harry what she's done, yet when he's this angry, there's no sense in talking reason to him. His anger towards Draco has reached an unhealthy level out of blue, so much she worries Harry might try to go back to their home and attack Draco now. Harry has access to their wards, after all, since he created them for them, practically their secret keeper.

She inches back on the couch. "Harry please. When I say Draco isn't to blame, I _really_ mean that, I'm not trying to find excuses for him. You have to understand—"

"Yes you are making excuses for him and I understand perfectly!" Harry snarls. "Just like you did after the war, when you said he changed, because him and his bloody family made a few donations to charitable causes and Narcissa was decent. But that doesn't make him or his father decent. He bloody hit you, doesn't that show his true colours? Can't you see that?"

His words hit her like a ton of bricks, partly because the grains of truth in what Harry's saying.

It clicks in her mind too then what Harry's said about wanting to stop her wedding years ago...something about all his behaviour irks her and rubs her the wrong way.

Shouldn't Harry be supporting her now, not attacking her marriage?

It brings tears to her eyes that she can't even find comfort in her best friend. So everyone has been rooting for her marriage to fail all along have they? Not just on the Malfoy side, but Harry too.

"So you really never accepted or liked Draco did you? And I thought Draco was being paranoid but he was absolutely right! You never gave him a chance for a second!"

"No you never gave us a chance for a second!"

"Us?" Hermione stammers. "Us Harry?"

"Yes."

Fucking Merlin. Could her life get anymore unhinged and insane. Is Harry seriously going to pull the same conversation they once had in the tent more than eight years ago? Now? Now when she's crying and in need of his support, not his condemnation or accusations. She told him that night years ago she only thought of him as a friend. He understood didn't he? Harry had understood and acted like a sport back then. Why is he acting like he no longer understands her boundaries?

She closes her eyes to try to regain her breath.

But Harry sees this as an invitation and his lips crash down onto hers, at the same time as his hands clamp down on her arms as he leans towards her on the sofa, trying to deepen the kiss, darting his tongue to try to part her lips.

It shakes her to her core and she wants to shriek.

~o~

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a/n: Uh oh. Cliffhanger. Now this throws in a monkey wrench of doubt. Was it really lucius that night or might it have been harry? Who is actually lying and what actually happened?

thanks for reading


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